LEGISLATIVE BRANCH APPROPRIATIONS

FOR 2017

HEARINGS
BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION

SUBCOMMITTEE ON LEGISLATIVE BRANCH

TOM GRAVES, Georgia, Chairman
MARK E. AMODEI, Nevada
E. SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia
EVAN H. JENKINS, West Virginia
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida

SAM FARR, California
BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Rogers, as Chairman of the Full Committee, and Mrs. Lowey, as Ranking
Minority Member of the Full Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees.

ELIZABETH C. DAWSON, Clerk

JENNIFER PANONE and TIM MONAHAN, Professional Staff

PART 2
FISCAL YEAR 2017 LEGISLATIVE BRANCH
APPROPRIATIONS REQUESTS

(
Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations

U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

99994

WASHINGTON : 2016

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HAROLD ROGERS,
RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New Jersey
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama
KAY GRANGER, Texas
MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho
JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas
ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas
KEN CALVERT, California
TOM COLE, Oklahoma
MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
TOM GRAVES, Georgia
KEVIN YODER, Kansas
STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
THOMAS J. ROONEY, Florida
CHARLES J. FLEISCHMANN, Tennessee
JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington
DAVID P. JOYCE, Ohio
DAVID G. VALADAO, California
ANDY HARRIS, Maryland
MARTHA ROBY, Alabama
MARK E. AMODEI, Nevada
CHRIS STEWART, Utah
E. SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia
DAVID W. JOLLY, Florida
DAVID YOUNG, Iowa
EVAN H. JENKINS, West Virginia
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi

Kentucky, Chairman
NITA M. LOWEY, New York
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana
E. SERRANO, New York
JOSE
ROSA L. DELAURO, Connecticut
DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina
LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
SAM FARR, California
CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
SANFORD D. BISHOP, JR., Georgia
BARBARA LEE, California
MICHAEL M. HONDA, California
BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota
STEVE ISRAEL, New York
TIM RYAN, Ohio
C. A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine
MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
DEREK KILMER, Washington

WILLIAM E. SMITH, Clerk and Staff Director

(II)

CONTENTS
TESTIMONY
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Architect of the Capitol ...........................................................................................
House of Representatives ........................................................................................
Library of Congress .................................................................................................

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PREPARED STATEMENTS
Government Publishing Office ................................................................................
Government Accountability Office ..........................................................................
Congressional Budget Office ...................................................................................
Office of Compliance ................................................................................................
Open World Leadership Center ..............................................................................
Written Testimony of Other Interested Individuals and Organizations .............

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LEGISLATIVE BRANCH APPROPRIATIONS

FOR 2017
TUESDAY, MARCH 1, 2016.
U.S. CAPITOL POLICE
WITNESSES
KIM C. DINE, CHIEF OF POLICE
MATTHEW R. VERDEROSA, ASSISTANT CHIEF OF POLICE
RICHARD L. BRADDOCK, CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER

OPENING STATEMENT

OF

CHAIRMAN GRAVES

Mr. GRAVES. Welcome, everyone. The subcommittee will come to

order, and we will begin our hearings on fiscal year 2017s budget
requests of the various agencies of the legislative branch.
I look forward to continuing our work with all the members of
the subcommittee, including our ranking member, Debbie
Wasserman Schultz of Florida, our vice chairman, Mr. Amodei; Mr.
Rigell of Virginia; Mr. Jenkins of West Virginia; Mr. Palazzo of
Mississippi, welcome you back; and Mr. Farr of California; Ms.
McCollum of Minnesota.
I want to thank each of you for being here and appreciate your
dedication and attention to the important issues of this subcommittee.
And as everyone of this subcommittee knows, our national debt
is at the tune of now $19 trillion, and as we all know, this is
unsustainable and unacceptable. While major reforms to the Federal programs outside the jurisdiction of this committee are certainly needed, we nonetheless must lead by example, and we will.
The budget that was submitted by the administration for this
subcommittee to consider, not including the Senate items, or under
the Architect of the Capitol for the Senate, is $3.6 billion, which
is an increase of 6.8 percent over last years enacted level. So when
you include the Senate, the request is at $4.7 billion, or an increase
of just over 6 percent over last years enacted level.
Now, our job is going to be to scrutinize the request under our
jurisdiction, and we will continue to lead by example by being efficient, effective, and doing more with less, as we have done in the
past. I appreciate the hard work done to prepare these budget requests, and I look forward to the hearings from each of the agencies.
Now, today, we have with us the United States Capitol Police,
the Chief of Policethank you for being here, Mr. Dine; Assistant
Chief Matthew Verderosa, who will be taking over as Chiefwe
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congratulate youon March 20; and Mr. Braddock, the Chief Administrative Officer.
This will be Chief Dines last testimony before this subcommittee.
And we are grateful for your service, Chief, in your capacity now.
I know it is since December 2012, you were appointed to serve as
the Chief of Police for the United States Capitol Police.
Now, during his tenure with the Capitol Police, he has overseen
the 57th inaugural event of the President of the United States, 4
State of the Union addresses, thousands of visits from heads of
state, dignitaries, and VIPs, joint meetings, summits, events, and
demonstrations, over 30 million screenings for the Capitol complex
in total, and the day-to-day operations of running a police department.
Chief, well done. Thank you. All of us on the subcommittee
would like to thank you for your hard work and your dedication to
the safety and the security of the entire Capitol complex, and we
would also like to thank the officers and the civilians of the Capitol
Police for their service.
Their presence has allowed Members and staff to safely conduct
the peoples work and ensure that all visitors can safely enjoy this
rich history of the Capitol that we all endure and love.
Now, your budget request for fiscal 2017 is $409.6 million. This
is an increase of just under $35 million, or around 9 percent, over
last years level. And while we understand your critical mission to
ensure that our Nations legislative and democratic process of government are conducted without disruption, our job, obviously, is to
scrutinize this request and to make informed funding decisions as
we move forward.
So with that, I would like to conclude my opening remarks and
ask Ms. Wasserman Schultz, ranking member, if she has anything
she would like to add, and then certainly recognize the ranking
member of the full committee afterwards, Mrs. Lowey.
OPENING STATEMENT

OF

RANKING MEMBER WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chief Dine, really I want to echo the chairmans sentiment and
add to it. Your service has been remarkable. To come into an agency that you did not grow up in, so to speak, and take command the
way you did and be able to steer us through the myriad of challenges that a police agency faces every single day really reflects incredibly well on your management skills, and on the respect that
your officers had for you. We were very fortunate to be able to have
you lead the Capitol Police through this last 4 years.
I can tell you that I personally wish you extremely well moving
forward. I enjoyed the conversations that we have had and always
appreciated how you were readily available whenever we had questions and gave us really thorough and frank responses, because we
dont always get those in the political process. So I just cant thank
you enough for your incredible service.
Assistant Chief Verderosa, Im looking forward to having that
leadership continue. You have done a remarkable job. Now we will
switch to an institutionalist, so to speak, to someone who did grow
up inside the Capitol Police family, Im looking forward to working

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with you and having the same kind of relationship that I have enjoyed with Chief Dine.
As we are all aware, the Capitol Police was provided with the
largest budget increase of any other agency in the fiscal year 2016
omnibus; $27 million, or 8 percent above fiscal year 2015. By comparison, the House was provided with a zero percent increase, the
Library of Congress, a 1.5 percent increase, and the Government
Accountability Office, a 1.7 percent increase. The budget before us
today requests an additional $34.6 million, or 9.2 percent, in addition to the $27 million just provided in December.
Chief Dine, Assistant Chief Verderosa, we want security, but we
do not want security to the detriment of everything else that makes
Congress work, including our staffs. Part of the difficulty is the inability for this committee to see a force that is adequately preparing for current global threats.
In fiscal year 2016s request, as part of your $27 million increase,
a $4 million carveout was fenced off until a plan was delivered by
the Capitol Police Board. Those funds were provided was to prepare for threats after the tragedies in Paris and San Bernardino.
Before receiving the plan, I expected initiatives that were focused
on preventing and recovering from the type of mass casualty events
that we have, unfortunately, seen play out across the country and
the globe.
Instead, the plan that we received was to hire more police officers and place more magnetometers. That is no different than the
basic Capitol Police budget and far from the forward-thinking vision that we need to prepare for our worst-case scenarios in an
ever-changing world. In addition, 1-year infusions are meant to be
just that, 1 year. Hiring officers is a 30-year financial commitment
that grows with inflation each and every year.
Chief Dine, as you prepare to depart, we once again need your
frank assessment on how the agency is prioritizing its resources
and if we are being asked to fund a 20th century police force as
our threats become more 21st century every year.
Just as important as how the decisions are being made within
the department to prioritize funding, I would like to understand
the process by which those decisions about preparing our force for
how forward looking approaches are made. If we are having outside
forces come in and make decisions for you, that is something that
I would like to hear about during this hearing, and you should expect a healthy exchange from me during questioning.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to their testimony.
Mr. GRAVES. Thank you, Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
And I am delighted to have us with us the ranking member of
the full committee, Mrs. Lowey.
Thank you for joining us.
OPENING STATEMENT

OF

RANKING MEMBER LOWEY

Mrs. LOWEY. I am delighted to be here, and I thank you very up

much. And I thank the ranking member. It is a pleasure to be with
you both today. And I am delighted to join you in welcoming the
witnesses.
And thank you so much in advance for your testimony.

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I particularly want to join my colleagues in commending Chief
Dine on your years of hard work and service. You have been instrumental in ensuring the safety of this campus. And as I mentioned
before, it is a real, real challenge. And we are very, very grateful.
You will be missed.
And, Chief Verderosa, I want to congratulate you on your appointment as Chief of Police, and we look forward to working together.
Each year, my colleagues, between 3 and 5 million people from
around the world visit the U.S. Capitol and surrounding buildings.
The Capitol Police are tasked with protecting these sacred halls
and the visitors, school groups, advocates, Members, and staff who
come to the Capitol each day. This subcommittee has recognized
the changing nature of global threats, has provided resources for
the Capitol Police to prevent and respond to a worst-case scenario
event.
For all those who visit the Capitol, it is imperative that funding
from the Legislative Branch Subcommittee be used wisely to reduce our risk or respond capably during and after any incident. Addressing these needs, including enhanced security, the cost of necessary repairs to aging buildings and infrastructure, preservation
of the Library of Congress, among others, is imperative for Members of Congress to meet the expectations of their constituents.
During these years of austerity, perhaps some of these agencies
and initiatives could have been better addressed had the majority
not spent over $6 million on a partisan political Benghazi investigation, 2.3 million defending the Defense of Marriage Act, and
now hundreds of thousands more for legal action against the administration on the Affordable Care and Guantanamo Bay.
Since the elections will be over for the majority of fiscal year
2017, I hope we can set aside some of those excessively partisan
endeavors to adequately invest in the legitimate security priorities
before this committee.
So in closing, I want to thank you again, Chief Dine, for all your
hard work, and I look forward to working with you.
And, Chief Verderosa, good luck to you. We know the enormous
task ahead, and we look forward to working together.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. GRAVES. Thank you, Mrs. Lowey.
And, Chief Dine, now if you would like to give us a presentation
of your written statement you have already submitted. I know that
that is being submitted as part of the record, but we look forward
to hearing from you as you want to describe some of your plans
looking ahead and your final hearing and testimony.
STATEMENT

OF

CHIEF KIM C. DINE

Chief DINE. Yes, sir. Thank you, Chairman Graves, Ranking

Member Wasserman Schultz, and members of the committee. I am
honored to be here today, and I appreciate the opportunity to
present the United States Capitol Police budget request for fiscal
year 2017.
Before I begin, I would like to note that my full testimony, as you
mentioned, outlining the Departments request has been submitted
for the record.

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I am joined here today by Assistant Chief Matthew Verderosa,
our Chief of Operations and soon to be Chief of Police, and Mr.
Richard Braddock, our Chief Administrative Officer, as well as
some members of my executive management team and our Inspector General, Fay Ropella.
First, I would like to thank the committee for its sustained and
unwavering support for the United States Capitol Police. I would
specifically like to express our appreciation to the committee and
to the Congress for providing the necessary salaries and general
expenses funding for fiscal year 2016 to support our personnel and
operations.
The women and men of the Capitol Police work tirelessly to ensure that the legislative process of our government functions without disruption or lapses in security or safety 24 hours a day, 365
days a year. But none of this would be possible without your support and that of the Capitol Police Board.
The Departments fiscal year 2017 request totals nearly $410
million and represents an overall increase of $35 million, or 9 percent, over the fiscal year 2016 enacted funding level of $375 million.
The Departments fiscal year 2017 personnel request reflects our
continuous efforts at all levels of management to effectively and
prudently manage our existing resources to achieve the best possible balance of staff versus overtime and to meet mission requirements. We are constantly analyzing our workforce to align job functions, assignments, workload, risk management, and organizational
readiness, along with the ever-changing assessments and mandatory mission requirements within a dynamic environment.
Our fiscal year 2017 request includes base funding for 1,823
sworn officers and 373 civilian positions. These are the staffing levels funded during fiscal year 2016. In addition, the request also includes half-a-year funding for an additional 72 officers and 51 civilians.
With the rise of ISIL and continued efforts of Al Qaeda and other
terrorist organizations to attack public venues, as well as increased
occurrences of homegrown violent extremists and lone wolf-type
episodes, we have seen a rise in the number of mass casualty
events around the world and in the continental United States.
Based on this rise in terrorist events and the tactics displayed
by the assailants, the United States Capitol Police have once again
reviewed its operational and tactical posture to ensure that the department is taking every measure possible to maintain the security
of the Capitol complex while allowing the legislative process to continue to function in an open environment.
In close coordination with the Capitol Police Board, the Department believes that the implementation of security measures to better secure and screen within House garages, the full implementation of additional screening and prescreening at various building
access points, and the implementation of enhanced screening portals is necessary.
Before requesting additional personnel, the Department looked at
its current mission load and worked closely with the Capitol Police
Board to modify or eliminate mission requirements in order to offset new mission requirements. Additionally, the Department has

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reviewed duties currently performed by officers that could be
civilianized in order to repurpose current officers to better meet
operational requirements. Funding for 48 new civilian positions requested will be utilized for this civilianization process, and funding
for 3 new civilian positions will support the increased physical security infrastructure.
The funding request represents an overall increase of approximately 8 percent over fiscal year 2016 salaries enacted level, which
includes funding for the 2017 Presidential Inauguration, natural
salary increases, additional staffing requirements, and increased
overtime costs, since the departments current sworn staffing levels
do not entirely provide the necessary resources to meet all of our
mission requirements.
The second area I want to cover in some detail is our requested
general expenses budget, which includes protective travel, hiring,
outfitting, and training new sworn personnel, supplies and equipment, management systems, nonpersonnel Presidential Inauguration support, and other nonpersonnel needs. We are requesting $76
million for general expenses, which is an increase of $10 million
over the fiscal year 2016 enacted level.
The increase results from normal increases in operating costs, inauguration costs, cost to train, recruit, and outfit the new employees previously mentioned, the cost of life-cycle key items and routine equipment systems, and the restoration of annual levels, reduced in previous fiscal years, to meet regular department needs.
The request also includes an additional requirement to equip a
fully functional Alternate Command Center.
In closing, I am very grateful for your time today. As you know
and as you mentioned, this is the last time I will appear before you
representing this great organization. I have had the distinct pleasure of serving as the Chief of Police through one Inauguration, four
State of the Union addresses, six Joint Meetings of Congress, historical events, the African Summit, which included over 50 heads
of state at the Capitol, and as you noted, over 30 million
screenings, over 600 demonstrations, the rollout of our new strategic plan, the achievement of the Gold Standard accreditation
from the Commission on Accreditation and Law Enforcement, the
implementation of our new digital encrypted radio system, the creation of a field commander program, the implementation a new
field training program for new officers, the completion of active
shooter training for the entire department, a new hiring process for
recruits which has resulted in over 20,000 applications over the
last 3 years, the hiring of a labor relations specialist to maximize
labor-management relations, the hiring of a new chief information
officer, a new diversity officer, and a new communications director,
and lastly, the implementation of a new communication practice to
better communicate with you and the greater congressional community.
All of this has been a possibility because of your support and the
excellent work by the women and men of the United States Capitol
Police.
I would like to make special note that all of this was done while
keeping the congressional community safe. And so I would like to
thank the women and men of the USCP for their commitment to

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our mission and their unwavering dedication every day to ensuring
the safety and security of our Members, staff, and many visitors
who come to the Capitol to see our great democracy in action.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today, and
I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have at this
time.
[The prepared statement of Chief Dine follows:]

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Mr. GRAVES. Thank you, Chief, for your testimony, and also you
took a moment there to summarize your tenure and experience and
a lot of the accomplishments you have seen and participated in. I
really, on the onset, only have one quick question for you, and then
I will go to Ms. Wasserman Schultz next.
FUTURE THREATS AND CHALLENGES

As you leave and as you are, so to speak, passing the baton to

your right, what challenges do you foresee that you feel comfortable
in sharing, that are looking at us in the horizon, aside from monetary, budgetary, those kind of things, but more just some of the
physical threats or challenges you see that we should be aware of?
Chief DINE. Well, thank you, sir. That is a great question. I think
the challenges we face are somewhat unique to this great organization. Police departments across the country face all types of challenges in terms of gaining the trust of the communities they serve,
and that is no different here.
But as everyone here knows, we are essentially an antiterrorist
organization. We face asymmetrical threats. We face a threat posture now that is much less clear than it has been in the past. As
is publicly known, a lot of communication now is frankly in the
dark, so we dont know what we dont know. We protect an open
campus, it requires people paying attention, and it does require a
lot of resources.
We are very much plugged into the intelligence community
across the country at multiple levels in a number of task forces,
and every single day we take the temperature of the threat posture. We also do that yearly as part of our own internal business
process to see what type of budget we should build around these
threats.
I think the challenges we face center around the fact that homegrown violent extremists are on the increase, the number of attacks
over the years are on the increase. There have been 60 arrests of
United States citizens since March of 2014 and August 2015. Since
9/11, there have been 144 terrorist plots; 85 percent of those have
been since 2009.
Mr. FARR. There are plots on the Capitol?
Chief DINE. No, across the country. There have been 81 total arrests, ISIS-related arrests in the United States.
So we face all of those challenges and the day-to-day challenges
of keeping everyone here safe in an orderly, open, free environment.
I will say, on a daily basis, and we are very proud of this, and
this is also something other departments face also, we rarely make
the news, the fact that every day we protect peoples rights to be
heard when they come here and express their first amendment
rights. We manage those demonstrations with sophistication and
communication and through teamwork, so you dont hear much
about those.
It does require coordination and sophistication. As you know, we
work very, very closely with the United States Secret Service, the
United States Park Police, the FBI, the Metropolitan Police Department, pretty much all of the agencies in the National Capital

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Region, as well as departments around the country, when we engage in our dignitary protection efforts.
Mr. GRAVES. Well, thank you. I know that myself and many of
the members of the subcommittee had the opportunity to visit the
headquarters and were greatly impressed with the assets, the intelligence, the information, all that you are working with and coordinating to keep this a safe environment, given all the threats
you have identified.
Knowing that we have votes coming up at some point later this
afternoon, I respect everybodys opportunity to have questions here.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz, lets go to you next, and then we will
go around the room some.
LONG-TERM IMPACT OF THE SPENDING PLAN FOR ENHANCED SECURITY

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you very much.

Chief, in my opening statement, I made mention of being surprised an additional $4 million was provided in the omnibus. Those
funds were fenced off specifically to fund approaches to keep us
safe in the wake of mass casualty attacks in places like San
Bernadino and Paris, and require committee approval before they
are used. But, again, as I mentioned, those funds are now simply
going towards more officers and more magnetometers, 48 actually,
and those funds are going to be used to hire, train, and equip those
48 sworn officers.
Since the plan came up after your fiscal year 2017 request, does
your budget need to be adjusted to pay for those officers? And
much has been made by many Members about the need for us to
return to regular order in both the appropriations process and the
process that we are using to move legislation, and that, to me, is
not representative of regular order by any means, especially when
we are obligating a lot of money through the balance of an officers
career. It is not 1-year money.
So if you could touch on that. Additionally, I want to ask you,
as I asked you when we first had a chance to talk at one of these
hearings, about the Capitol Police Board. Because, if you will recall, I asked your opinion of the Capitol Police Board and its structure, and you had only been on the job a couple of months and had
good things to say, including positive reviews to the Board, and the
direction that they provided.
So three years later, as you are departing this institution, I
would like that same assessment. How has the governance structure of the Board worked? Has it allowed the Chief to function in
a way that enables reasonable planning, allows the Chief to address appropriate security needs, and be held accountable for those
decisions?
Specifically in the fiscal year 2017 request, how much of the Capitol Police budget would you estimate is due to direction from the
Board or the Sergeant versus what your department has
prioritized?
Chief DINE. Thank you.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I told you it would be challenging.
Chief DINE. You did, and you were correct.
I think the first and third answer go together. It is a function
of the threats we face, the timing of the threats, the timing of

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things that happened in Paris and San Bernardino, and also some
longstanding issues within the Capitol complex, such as garage security, so that has been sort of
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Have we faced a credible threat similar to San Bernardino or any other
Chief DINE. Well, the good news is at this time we do not have
any current credible threat against the United States Capitol, although, as you know, there have been some. The challenge is we
dont know what we dont know. Over the last four years we recovered 62 weapons, 60 tasers, 389 knives. Those are just some of the
day-to-day police activities that our officers do either at checkpoints
or traffic stops as they work to try to keep
ROLE OF THE CAPITOL POLICE BOARD IN THE USCP BUDGET PROCESS

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. How much of your request is due to

your prioritization as the leader of the police force and your fellow
officers and direction from the Capitol Police Board or the Sergeant?
Chief DINE. We worked with the Capitol Police Board to identify
three priorities.
One was prescreeners, which we believe helps keep the Capitol
safe and within the perfect world would be the best way to deploy
staff around the Capitol. Without getting into too much detail
about our security, but people know we staff our posts. In the best
possible world, we would have multiple prescreeners at multiple
doors to see a threat coming and engage that threat outside. That
was the first priority.
The second priority was garage screening, and the third priority
was enhanced portal screening for the chambers. Those are done in
conjunction with the Capitol Police Board and ultimately the
Boards direction as we formulate those plans together.
We formulated a strategic approach to address all three of those
priorities, hence the budget as it was crafted, and the challenge, as
you noted, is those are new tasks which require officers.
We have made a creative attempt to better utilize our manpower,
to see what functions we can civilianize, which is why the 48 civilians are requested to move officers from our Communications Division and our Command Center and some sworn from the Training
Division and reassign them to other posts to be efficient and make
the best use of our sworn personnel.
There have been creative efforts to try to do that and to take on
these additional tasks.
STATE OF USCP READINESS

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. What is the readiness state of the police? we have given you upwards of 8 to 10 percent increases with
flatlining the other agencies. How many officers is the ideal number? We all want to be safe, and we want to keep the visitors that
join us here safe, but it does seem that there is never an ideal
number.
I remember, Mr. Chairman, when I was the chair of this subcommittee, and it is a question that I still ask any agency head to
respond to: there are the got to haves and the nice to haves.

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I have seen many, many bells and whistles that are available to
the Capitol Police, and I could see the value in each and every one
of those. But when we have just come through a recession and
there are real needs for the rest this bill, we need to make sure
that we are funding those real needs and not the bells and whistles
that could maybe wait so that we can fund the overall needs of an
agency that is an entire branch of our Government.
I know that is not your job to prioritize, but it is a question that
is in need of an answer because it is hard to know when you are
ready.
Chief DINE. It is a brilliant question, and it faces every Chief in
the country.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. A brilliant question. Thank you very
much.
Chief DINE. Well, and I dont think there is a Chief that knows,
generally speaking, what that perfect number is, and in my previous lives, I have had that same conversation. I think in some
ways it is easier for us because of the functions that we face, which
are quite often specific.
We have a number of posts that, for a number of reasons, we
have to staff. Because of the fact we have so many fixed posts and
assigned specific duties, it makes, for instance, training those officers more of a challenge than it would your traditional police department where you literally could take maybe half the officers offline and the public might not even realize that there are half of the
officers working for a 2-week period or a tour of duty.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Are you in a posture where you will
just ask for whatever we will give you and you will take whatever
we will give you because you could always put it to good use?
Chief DINE. No, the
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Or are you actually crafting a budget
that is representative of what your actual needs are to be able to
make sure that we can cover the Capitol complex and its security
needs?
Chief DINE. Well, first of all, we will always do the best we can
with the resources that you give us, and we appreciate those resources. We feel that Appropriations takes very good care of the department and the congressional community. That being said, this
budget and the budgets that we craft are specifically crafted to
meet the very specific and focused duties that we are being asked
to do by the Capitol Police Board and our multiple stakeholders.
There are literally post-by-post reviews, and we scrub every assignment and we analyze every post. We want to have sufficient
number of relief for those officers. We want to be able to have a
response capability. In fact, we want to be able to have multiple
response capabilities as we saw a couple of years ago when we had
simultaneous disruptions in some hearings. We cant be equipped
to only respond to one disruption. We need to be able to respond
to multiple disruptions.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. I have
other questions, but I will reserve them.
Mr. GRAVES. Thank you, Chief. And I think from the onset I
mentioned there would be some scrutiny in questions, and as dem-

25
onstrated with the brilliant questions coming from Ms. Wasserman
Schultz, with brilliant answers, obviously, from the Chief.
Mr. Amodei has indicated he has no questions at this time,
but
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. My work here is done, Mr. Chairman.
USCP RADIO SYSTEM

Mr. GRAVES. Mr. Palazzo is next in the queue.

Mr. PALAZZO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you to our Chief and our Capitol Police. You make us
feel safe, not just here in D.C. and our staff and our families, but
also at home, being very responsive to possible security situations.
I am glad to have you on our side.
In 2014, I believe you all upgraded to a new interoperable radio
system after years of delay. Do you care to tell us, is it working?
Chief DINE. Thank you for that question. Yes, sir, I am proud to
say, because of the work of Mr. Braddock and his entire team, that
system, the minute we turned it on has worked flawlessly. We are
extremely proud of the way that system works. There is not a day
that goes by as I am traveling around on the campus or in the city
or in the region where I dont marvel at the effectiveness of that
system.
Just the other day, we were in a tunnel and there were some accidents there. We stopped to deal with that. It works pretty much
everywhere, but it is built to be continually improved and upgraded
as necessary, as we need to put things online.
Thank you for your support for that system. And yes, it is working very, very well. We are very proud of it.
Mr. GRAVES. Anything else?
Mr. PALAZZO. Well, Mr. Chairman, I do have some questions, so
if we ever do a more secretiveprobably more about the operations
and the things that we dont see on a daily basis that they are
probably doing to keep us safe.
Mr. GRAVES. Yes. All right.
Mr. PALAZZO. I dont think this will be the setting.
Mr. GRAVES. That might be a different setting, yes.
Mr. Farr.
Mr. FARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I hope that after the votes
we will come back, because this is a half-a-billion-dollar budget
hearing, and we havent even talked about the Architect of the
Capitol.
Mr. GRAVES. I appreciate you bringing that up. That is the plan.
That is probably likely after your question. We will see. Maybe Mr.
Jenkins will have a question, and then we can go vote. We will suspend, recess for a moment, and then return.
Mr. FARR. Well, I would like to echo, Chief Dine and the others,
your incredible public service.
Chief DINE. Thank you, sir.
Mr. FARR. I want to also thank you for allowing the kids to sled
on the west slope after the Snowmageddon. I think that was a
great uplift for the Hill, and I appreciate your tolerance in that.
Chief DINE. Thank you.
Mr. FARR. You just laid out, I mean, to me it seems have built
an empire since you have been here. And that is a good thing. I

26
think people in charge need to build empires. But when you talk
about an open campus, I would argue that your actions make it is
less open. The garages are less open because we have closed permanent doors in Longworth and Rayburn garages. We have closed
hallways. We now want to put a magnetometer and officers in the
garage off of Longworth.
I am concerned because right now, as we speak, somebody just
sent me a videoI mean, a picture of the long line outside of Longworth. All this week people have been out there, and last week in
the rain, out to the sidewalk. You havent changed the number of
officers in that line, you have two magnetometers there, and only
one is ever open. The same number of officers are on there. And
we keep giving you more officers.
This building is owned by the American public, not by us in Congress. They lend us these jobs, and in turn we hire you. But our
function for all of us here is to make government accessible and
petitionable and all of those things, and I know we have to have
all this security. We have to have good security. But I am concerned about sort of the mission creep, and I want to get into some
questions.
COORDINATION WITH LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES IN DC

One of them is, and I asked this last year, but I dont know if
I got an answer about how many law enforcement agencies are
there, including all the Federal agencies, the Park Service Police
and the White House, both uniform and un-uniform. How many
law enforcement agencies are there in the District of Columbia?
Chief DINE. There are about 32.
Mr. FARR. Thirty-two separate law enforcement.
Chief DINE. I believe so.
Mr. FARR. And do you have interoperable agreements with them,
like the fire department does, on backup responding?
Chief DINE. Yes. We work very closely with many or most of
them. We have interoperability with our radio system with many
of them, and we do support each other. I think as time has passed,
I was actually, as you may recall, with the DC Police Department
during 9/11. After that, the departments, frankly, began to communicate better, and I think each of us also began to, it is sort of a
double-edge answer, carve out our role and responsibilities.
Mr. FARR. Well, as I understand, last year, when you were asking for the increase, it was for overtime, and the overtime was
being paid because we had to release officers on these new special
duties. We have a canine team, we have a chemical team, we have
a SWAT team, we have all kinds of different teams, and officers
have to be specially trained for that, and we give them overtime.
We suggested that, perhaps with mutual aid agreements, that
these 32 departments together could probably respond to a lot of
these specialty needs without having to have our own in, without
having everything in-house.
I mean, this is the kind of problem the Government has everywhere, just needing more and more and more. We are coming to
the end of the line of that. We are really looking for building of
more cost-effective collaboratives.

27
Chief DINE. We do collaborate during our national security special events. There is great cooperation and teamwork among all the
agencies. I think the challenge we face from a day-to-day perspective, those functions you just mentioned, those are daily tasks that
we have to engage in at that time. There are layers
Mr. FARR. Dont each of those 32 agencies have to do the same
thing? I mean, doesnt the Metropolitan Police, which surrounds us,
have all those functions? You have a 4-block jurisdiction, they are
responsible for everything in that and outside.
Chief DINE. Right. Their role and responsibilities are different.
Where our role and responsibilities are detecting both vehicle-borne
explosives and personal-borne explosives, the Metropolitan Police
Department deals with other issues. The challenges we face are
separate and distinct in that regard, and I know that none of them
have the ability to take on those functions for us.
In regard to the Departments overtime, as we often say at our
budget hearings, we actually have more mission than we have people, which is why there is always some
Mr. FARR. Well, that is what I am kind of hinting at, that maybe
some of that mission ought to be more shared and more mutually
responsive than just stand-alone here.
Chief DINE. Right.
Mr. GRAVES. Mr. Farr, before you go on to your next question,
I am watching the vote clock behind you.
And Mr. Jenkins, if he could get in any kind of comment or question you have before we recess and come back, the chief and his
team will still be here, and we will continue if that is OK with Mr.
Farr.
Mr. Jenkins.
Mr. JENKINS. Just like those who are looking forward to retirement, they can count the days, the hours, and the minutes, we
watch as well.
Chief, thank you for outstanding service. We wish you the very
best. Thank you for all you have done to keep us safe and the public who comes to visit. So thank you for your service.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. GRAVES. OK. Thank you, Mr. Jenkins.
Well, this committee will stand in recess until we return, and we
will be back in not too long, I would hope. Maybe 10 or 15 minutes,
Chief.
Thank you all very much. We stand in recess.
[Recess.]
LONGWORTH MAGNETOMETERS

Mr. AMODEI [presiding]. We are going to call the meeting back

to order. Thanks, Chief and Assistant Chief and Mr. Braddock, for
your patience. I understand, Chief, you have leave at 2:45.
So we are going to start with the gentleman from California. I
think he had some other questions.
Mr. FARR. Thank you.
Mr. AMODEI. So please proceed.
Mr. FARR. Thank you very much.
When you were in the office last Friday, we were talking about
the new magnetometers that were going to be placed in the Long-

28
worth Building and the personnel that would be needed for that,
for passage from the Longworth garage. You indicated that you
would need no new personnel to staff those magnetometers, you
would arrange it, it would be budget neutral. Well, I see in this
budget that you have requested 72 new officers.
So which is it? Is it budget neutral, no new staff, or 72 new officers? Is it budget neutral when you are requesting $5.7 million
more? I dont think that those magnetometers and officers truly are
budget neutral.
But I am just curious as to where this suggestion originated.
Was it something that came out of law enforcement or was it something that came more out of staff in Congress, leadership staff?
Who comes and says we need this in light of San Bernardino? I am
getting a feeling that some of this pressure on you is not necessarily originated in law enforcement circles.
Chief DINE. Well, there are probably a couple of answers to that.
As you know
Mr. FARR. You are leaving, so we can say anything.
Chief DINE. It has been an identified vulnerability for a number
of years, probably over 10 years. That being said, we work very
closely with the Board, and as you know, each Board member
even though I am a member of the Board, I am a nonvoting membereach Board member has their own role and responsibilities for
their constituents. And that was a priority of the House as well.
We work with the Board as a whole to craftin addition to our
own force development process, every year we go through our own
internal process to identify threats and vulnerabilities to build our
budget.
Mr. FARR. Well, I appreciate that. I think what Congresswoman
Wasserman Schultz was talking about is the Boards role.
I think, Mr. Chairman, one of the things that we need to do in
Congress, and everything we do in government, is to be aware of
mission creep. We gave no COLA to our employees last year. The
budget by the Architect of the Capitol, I think requests about a
I forget the percentage increase, but it is a substantial percentage
increase. And the Capitol Police, it is a 9, almost 10 percent increase in the budget request.
We all need to be focused on safety and morale. Poor morale
could lead to crazy gun shooters. We can secure ourselves beyond
necessity, at the same time leave ourselves vulnerable to disgruntled people. So I do think you always have to balance that.
I just wonder whether these new checkpointsparticularly setting up a magnetometer in the Longworth garage access point
when staff have already been cleared to enteris necessary. Drivers to go in with your their own car, you have to show your own
ID, nobody can be in that car without an ID, officers look in your
trunk, you park your car, you get out, then you got to do it all over
again. That person is our staff.
In fact, you are going to hear, because I just, being late to this,
I rushed my staff through the security downstairs because people
said when you are in a hurry and your chief of staff is with you,
you can do that. And the officer called me out, wanted to know my
name, took it down, I gave it to him, and he said he was going to

29
talk to you about it. So you can say: Well, that Farr, he is just a
troublemaker anyway.
I think that by doing this we are questioning the loyalty of our
own staff. And, you know, you are only going to put this magnetometer in one garage, in one place. It is not going to be done in
the Rayburn garage. So why not wait until it can be done in all
garages? Instead you should have officers opening up building
doors, so when the public is trying to get into Longworth, they can
get in, and probably Cannon as well, and Rayburn.
If we need more officers for the door, that is fine, but do we need
more officers to check our staff? I am not with it.
CONCEALED WEAPONS IN THE CAPITOL COMPLEX

Let me just ask you one last question and then I am finished.
When we were talking, I went back and looked at the stated priorities of the department, and your stated priority is to provide comprehensive internal assessment, assessment capability to identify
and validate threats.
Is it true that there are Members of Congress who carry concealed weapons on campus and even in the House Chamber?
Chief DINE. I dont know that for a fact.
Mr. FARR. Do they carry concealed weapons, some Members?
Chief DINE. I believe some Members have concealed carry permits.
Mr. FARR. You dont know about those?
Chief DINE. But as how they carry them or where they and when
they carry them, I am not aware of it.
Mr. FARR. Can they get into their offices with those weapons?
Chief DINE. They are allowed to have them in their offices. How
they get them there would be a subject of questioning. They are allowed to have them in their offices.
Mr. FARR. Do you know every Member who has one?
Chief DINE. No, sir.
Mr. FARR. Isnt that part of your role under your responsibility
to know?
Chief DINE. That would be interesting information to have.
Mr. FARR. Well, interesting? It is essential. Here we are trying
to create a really secured campus, and we dont even know how
many Members are essentially violating the rules. the law allows
them to have a concealed weapon, I guess, but it is not necessary
to bring that weapon into the House and certainly not on the floor.
Chief DINE. They may in fact be comporting with the rules, and
this is probably one place where the Sergeant at Armsthe role of
the Sergeant at Arms does come into play since they are the direct
liaison to the Members.
Mr. FARR. Would carrying a weapon onto the House floor be committing an illegal act?
Chief DINE. That would be something that the Sergeant at Arms
and Capitol Police would not want to have happen.
Mr. FARR. Maybe with the Sergeant here tomorrow we can get
to the bottom of this.
Thank you.
Mr. AMODEI. Thank you.
Anything from the gentleman from Mississippi?

30
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Ms.

PALAZZO. I have already asked my question.

AMODEI. Thank you.
PALAZZO. And he answered, so thank you.
AMODEI. The gentlelady from Florida.
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you very much.
HOUSE GARAGES AND ENHANCED SECURITY

Chief, I want to just go more specifically into the issue of the

House garages and the security screenings that are in the process
of being implemented, or at least getting ready to be implemented.
Why has a proposed security in the House garages suddenly gone
through an implementation process that did not go through the
normal appropriations process, was never discussed by any elected
Member of Congress, hasnt gone through regular order, or allowed
us to prioritize how much that would cost compared to competing
needs? Im concerned this new proposal is causing shifts of officers
and causing what I would view as a shoddy, disorderly process.
This process ultimately will likely not result in our being able to
make sure that the security goals are achieved. We should rather
be going through an orderly process that allows for people who
were elected to make funding decisions, and who were selected for
this committee to do that; to do our jobs.
So I have several questions in that category. Will the screening
of staff at garages mean that the screening of staff and visitors at
the Cannon and Rayburn tunnels are going to be eliminated? For
example, the Senate screens all the staff, so they have closed out
the screening in other places because they have one sort of central
point. I know they screen a lot less people than we do.
Chief DINE. Yes, maam. Ultimately, yes. The answer to that is
long term, yes.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. OK. I thought that would be your answer. We are only in the process of trying to do this in Longworth.
So, how are you going to achieve that if we are not doing the same
in Rayburn, which has, perhaps 80 doors inside the garage? Let me
preface this by saying I am absolutely 100 percent behind necessary security measures. I mean, we absolutely should have these
in place. But we have a process that exists for us to follow as appropriators, and it has not been followed.
Now you have to come up with how many officers you are having
to shift midstream that you havent planned for. Are you going to
leave them wherever they were uncovered, or have those slots covered by something else or someone else?
Why would we partially implement a garage security project? It
seems to me like you should do it all or you dont do any of it until
you can do all of it. What is the total startup cost to fully implement garage security? How much is it going to cost us in staffing
each year after it is up and running? Because it is not just a cost
now. That is the first one, for starters.
Chief DINE. I think the timing is a function of a couple things,
what has happened recently across the country and as well as
working with the Board. And as I mentioned
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. But what is the urgency? I mean, do
we haveyou mentioned earlier we dont have a credible threat. Of
course, anything could happen at any time and you always have to

31
be ready. But we are 15 years past 9/11, and we have been functioning, and it has been a concern the whole time, but we have
been functioning without that security at the garages. What is the
all-fire emergency that it has to be done outside the appropriations process, outside regular order? And essentially, where did this
order, where did this come from?
Chief DINE. As we work with the Board in terms of our own internal force development process and threat assessment, we also
work with the individual Board members and their desires, as really they are stakeholders. This initiative clearly was a desire on the
part of the House Sergeant at Arms to move this forward as
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I just met with the House Sergeant
at Arms in my office, and without discussing our conversation, that
is not my understanding. Where did this come from?
Chief DINE. Well, we work with the Capitol Police Board and the
various Sergeant at Arms
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I know you are just doing your job
and you have to follow the direction that you are given.
But I would like someone, Mr. ChairmanI realize you are the
acting chairman for the momentbut I absolutely would like an
explanation as to why we have gone outside regular order. No one
on the Capitol Police Board is elected to anything. And we have an
Appropriations Committee for a reason, and we are the ones that
spend time, over many years, prioritizing what our needs are.
Perhaps we would decide that this is an urgent need that has to
be done immediately. Then we could prioritize where we shift
funds, and decide what is going to be at the top of the priority list
and what we reduce down lower, if this is an all-fire emergency.
But it has not been an all-fire emergency for 15 years, so I dont
know how it is now.
I need a more specific explanation, which I am happy to further
explore with the Sergeant when he is here tomorrow.
Mr. Chairman, this is no way to run a rodeo, and this might
prove to be a need that is more urgent than it has been up to now.
However, that is our responsibility as appropriators to make that
decision, not for it to be imposed upon us and dropped in, in the
middle of what we all committed to and that I heard the leadership
pledge fealty to when the current Speaker took his office, which is
to return to regular order.
And this is anything but that, and it is a very significant amount
of money, millions upon millions of dollars committed many years
in the future. I mean, I think you have asked for something like
57 officers to cover this, and they serve until they are 57. That is
57 officers who will serve until 57. That is a very large commitment to never actually have gone through the planning process
that we have here.
So, Mr. Chairman, I would like you, if you could relay to Chairman Graves that I would like to have my questions submitted for
the record, and whoever is responsible for beginning the process of
the House garage security project outside of the Appropriations
Committee should be asked and required to answer our questions.
Mr. AMODEI. OK.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. My questions.
Mr. AMODEI. Thank you.

32
Chief, I want to thank you for your response to requests to me,
which kind of ties into the ranking members stuff in terms ofand
I know you are getting a little loose in the saddle or whatever. But
I do appreciate the fact that having got a C or above in civics, I
think I understand something about oversight.
So perhapswe have had some luck with this in the future, subject to the chairmans approvalif we ask you to put together a
briefing, with you and the Sergeant at Arms, we will have a chance
to ask him tomorrow, to schedule that, as opposed to a letter,
which in my experience, nobody elses, tends to take about a quarter of most congressional Members terms around here. Not your
agency specifically, that we can put together a briefing perhaps and
get the Sergeant at Arms in the room, you guys in the room to basically have that discussion.
If that is appropriate, we will forward that on to the chairman
and see if we cant get that done before you go join the older I get
the better I was club.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Amodei, are you suggesting that
we come back together so that we can have that conversation? We
can even do it in closed session.
Mr. AMODEI. Well, my thought is we will just set a meeting, and
the Members that are interested in it attend the meeting and can
have the discussion.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Right. I think that would be extremely helpful.
Mr. AMODEI. Great.
Chief, we kept you for 3 minutes, but over the course of how
many years, that is probably about as good as it gets, so thank you
for your service.
And thank you, folks.
Chief DINE. Thank you all for your support.
Mr. AMODEI. As always, members can submit questions in writing. We will work on that briefing.
Mr. FARR. Can you answer that question on the budget neutral,
whether it is budget neutral or not?
Chief DINE. Right now it is, but long term, clearly it is not because we are taking on new tasks. Right now, in the short term,
as the ranking member said, we are moving folks around and we
are trying to make the best use of the resources we have to implement this as asked. Long term, obviously
Mr. FARR. So you dont need the 72 officers for this.
Chief DINE. No. We will long term, because we are taking on new
tasks. We will, absolutely.
Mr. AMODEI. OK. Thank you.
This session of the meeting is adjourned.
[Questions submitted for the record follow:]

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35

TUESDAY, MARCH 1, 2016.

ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL
WITNESS
HON. STEPHEN T. AYERS, ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL

Mr. AMODEI [presiding]. We are going to restart this section of

the meeting devoted to hearing the budget request of the Architect
of the Capitol.
Mr. Ayers, welcome.
Mr. AYERS. Thank you.
Mr. AMODEI. I have got some stuff that talks about your statistics here, which is very good, and I will keep that in case I ever
need to know that. But I dont think I am going tosince we are
a little bit late, I will go ahead and forego that and defer to the
ranking member from Florida.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz, your opening remarks, please.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And welcome back to the committee, Mr. Ayers. It is always a
pleasure to work with you, and I enjoyed the opportunity to briefly
review your budget request, which is $694.3 million and 13.3 percent above the enacted.
I am pleased to see that the budget includes some funds for the
Historic Buildings Trust Fund, and I appreciate the chairman
keeping the Historic Buildings Trust Fund alive last year while
separately funding the Cannon project. Funding Cannons restoration as its own line item was the right thing to do, really important
for us to use the Historic Preservation Trust Fund to bank resources for future restoration and renewal. We have got hundreds
of millions of dollars in front of us, and so one of the things I am
concerned about, as I mentioned to you, is, while our oversight is
important and we want to make sure that we can have as much
transparency as possiblethat is why the separation was importantthis years budget request for the Historic Buildings Trust
Fund is only $10 million. I am concerned that we are not banking
enough funds to save for future large-scale projects. Cannon is
$800 million by itself, and we know Longworth and Rayburn will
be even more.
So, in 10 years, if we keep going at this rate, we would only save
$100 million for future projects. The Cannon House Building alone,
as I said, will cost close to $800 million. I am certain the next
building to need major renovations wont be any less. So saving $10
million a year for the next big project is not enough, in my opinion.
And I would ask my colleagues to consider that as we go through
the process of crafting this budget.
(37)

38
As we consider a budget that reflects our interests, our values
and our needs, we have to start with responsible planning within
our own walls.
In addition to the Cannon project, the Architect is in the home
stretch of restoring the Capitol dome. Congratulations on that. This
subcommittee funded the $126 million needed to restore the dome
and the rotunda to its former glory. I am looking forward to seeing
it before the inauguration next year, and that project is the most
visible example around the world of our roles as stewards of these
great institutions that make up Congress.
And I look forward to your testimony.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. AMODEI. Thank you.
Mr. Ayers, we have your opening statement. If you want to summarize that or remove that from the record and start from scratch,
the option is yours.
SUMMARY STATEMENT

OF THE

ARCHITECT

OF THE

CAPITOL

Mr. AYERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member

Wasserman Schultz and members of the subcommittee, I am delighted to be here today to present the Architect of the Capitols
2017 budget request.
2016 promises to be a banner year for the Architect of the Capitol as several important projects will be coming to a close. Most
visibly, before the 2017 Presidential Inauguration, restoration work
on the Capitol dome and rotunda will be complete. On the dome,
the installation of cupola windows is complete. The reinstallation
of large ornaments is in progress and, in fact, scheduled to be completed today. The cast iron repairs continue through the mid and
lower section of the dome. Inside the rotunda, coffers have been
stripped of old paint, and new painting is about to get underway.
Here on the House side, work is progressing well on the initial
phase of the Cannon House Office Building renewal.
STEWARDSHIP THROUGH PRIORITIZATION

Updating and improving our facilities through fiscal responsibility continues to be the most important priority for us. For example, the redesign of the Bartholdi Park project, as you see under
construction now, resulted in a cost reduction of nearly $4 million.
Over the course of the past 10 years, the installation of over $90
million in energy conservation measures in our buildings using energy savings performance contracts significantly aided in our ability to achieve the legislated 30 percent reduction in our energy intensity in our buildings. In fact, we exceeded that with a 30.9 percent reduction. This exceeds the target set by the Energy Independence and Security Act and is something that we are very, very
proud of.
These projects are all success stories but are also compelling examples of the need for sustained, significant investment in our deteriorating infrastructure. Continuing to defer our needs results in
critical damage that compounds and becomes costlier to repair.
Safety and state of good repair upgrades are the centerpiece of our
2017 request of $694 million. We continue to address an enormous
backlog today estimated at $1.49 billion.

39
FISCAL YEAR 2017 REQUEST

Our 2017 budget request builds on our successes, seeking $165

million for major capital projects deemed urgent or immediate.
These include replacing obsolete chillers at the Capitol Power Plant
to ensure safe and efficient air distribution throughout 23 buildings
across the Capitol campus; eliminating water infiltration that has
deteriorated facades of most of our buildings on Capitol Hill, in
particular, the Rayburn House Office Building garage is in need of
a comprehensive project to address concrete delamination and, if
not funded, will jeopardize the structure of the garage; repairing
leaks, corrosion, and aging piping systems in the Capitol Building
threaten to affect the operation of this building; improving the life
safety of the Library of Congress buildings through the second
phase of the Thomas Jefferson Building North Exit Stair B project,
which will increase the capacity to quickly evacuate that building
in an emergency.
Failure to address these and several other critical projects in the
short-term will exacerbate the aging process and facilitate new deterioration and failures, ultimately increasing the cost of these repairs.
I believe that working together we can remain a strong and
healthy symbol for our Nations growth and prosperity, and I thank
you for the opportunity today, and I would be happy to answer any
questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ayers follows:]

40

41

42

43

44

45
HOUSE PAGE DORM

Mr. AMODEI. Thank you.

The gentlelady from Florida.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you very much.
Mr. Ayers, I have a few questions.
I will try to flip through them, but you might want to bounce
back and forth to other members, Mr. Chairman.
I wanted to ask you about the page dorm because if you remember, in fiscal year 2014, I included language in our bill to make
sure the committee is notified before any work is done to the page
dorm or there is any discussion or proposal to use it for a different
purpose. Has there been any work done to the building since the
page program was eliminated, and have there been any discussions
about the future of that building that you are aware of?
Mr. AYERS. I am not aware that we have done any work to that
building other than routine maintenance to keep it from deteriorating. So we have done no new construction work there. However
we have received a request from the Speakers Office to begin reviewing that building for potential future uses.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Are there specific future uses? Have
they been specific?
Mr. AYERS. Yes.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. And what are those?
Mr. AYERS. They have asked us to look at a potential childcare
center in that space.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. OK. So the language in the fiscal year
2014 bill directed you to make sure that you made the committee
aware before you made any changes. So I would very much appreciate if we make sure that those discussions dont go any further
without including the subcommittee in those discussions.
Mr. AYERS. Of course.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. There is nothing wrong with child
care, but the purpose of it was to make sure that we could make
a decision, as I keep raising, that is ours to make when it comes
to prioritizing how funds are spent and the appropriate use for the
facilities that are on the Capitol, that are in the Capitol complex.
Also, just to give Members something to chew on, while that is
an interesting proposaland as a mother of young children, I certainly understand the need for expanded childcare opportunities.
But any decision that we make that permanently alters the ability
for us to maintain that building as a dorm, as a dormitory, forever
precludes us from reinstituting the page program if future House
leadership ever chooses to do that.
I, for one, lament that we do not have a House page program any
longer. There are generations of young people who were inspired by
their participation in that program to engage in public service. I remain convinced that we could go back and try to reform that program and make sure that if it were reinstituted, we could keep
young people engaged.
Mr. FARR. The Senate still has one.

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RAYBURN SMALL ARMS FIRING RANGE

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Yes, they do. They do, and they have
their own dorm. Ours is closed.
OK. The Rayburn firing range, as you know, is closed. It is a
brand-new firing range that the AOC was responsible for managing
the construction. How long was it open before the problems of ricocheting bullets were identified, and what is the timeline for reopening it? What happened with the contractor that the design of the
firing range resulted in ricocheting bullets? I mean, it is sort of baffling how this could occur.
Mr. AYERS. The range was open for approximately 2 weeks, and
we were notified by the police officers union of a number of safety
concerns with the range. The Capitol Police, I think appropriately,
shut it down while we could investigate and understand what all
of those issues were. We dont know today whether it is an operational issue, meaning a usage issue, or whether it is a design flaw.
We are in the middle of working through all of that right now.
We have a really good team of people from my organization and
Chief Dines organization that are working together with the designers, the contractor, and the manufacturer of the range to understand whether or not there are any design flaws. Second, the
police are working apace to determine what are the operational requirements that they need to have in place, and they are bringing
the range manufacturer on board as a consultant to them to help
them design systems and procedures to safely and effectively use
this range.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. What is the timetable for determining
why this happened and what the cause was and/or reopening the
range?
Mr. AYERS. I think my best guess
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Are there any additional costs that we
are going to be incurring as a result of the process that they have
to go through now?
Mr. AYERS.My best guess is, perhaps 2 months as we work
through possible causes. There are 15 issues on the table. Three or
four are closed out already, and as we work through all of those,
it is going to take a little time to do that.
We dont know whether there is a design problem which would
result in us having to reconstruct something, so we dont know
when the range will reopen or if there will be a future expense.
There are, I think, expenses that we are incurring today and Capitol Police are incurring today. For example, bringing in a thirdparty consultant to help us understand whether there is a design
issue or not. The police bringing in a team to help them write their
operation and maintenance procedures, the cleaning procedures,
and the procedures for effectively using this range will cost a small
amount of money out of their budget.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Is there a provision in the contracts
that you had with the vendors that designed it, or built it for reimbursement of costs incurred from design flaws or errors that are
determined ultimately to be the fault of the contractor, rather than
the fault of the Architect of the Capitols personnel?

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Mr. AYERS. There are those provisions in our contracts, and we
have used them before, not on this contract, obviously, but on other
contracts, and if we find there are errors, or omissions, or negligence, we will take the necessary action to recover our costs and
protect the governments interest.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. How much would you say you plan to
spend to address the problems thus far, and what do you anticipate
it costing going forward?
Mr. AYERS. I dont think we have actually spent any money yet,
but if we hire a third-party consultant, we could spend $20,000,
perhaps, to have someone work with us for a few weeks to help us
work through all of the design details and determine whether they
are produced correctly.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. But, potentially, we could have to
have a reconstruction or a redesign that could cost far more than
that?
Mr. AYERS. That could be the case. We really dont know, but it
could be the case.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. And the range remains closed. Was
anyone hurt during the use of the range from the ricocheting bullets?
Mr. AYERS. No, and these, of course, are fragments of bullets,
and they bounce back off of the end wall and tumble across the
floor.
U.S. CAPITOL DOME

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I mentioned in my testimony the Capitol dome project being in the home stretch, and I wanted to ask
you whether you expect that it is going to come in at the full $126
million expenditure, or do you anticipate there being any funds
that will remain at the end of the project that could possibly be
used for other projects.
Mr. AYERS. That is a very distinct possibility. You know, the
dome is in three phases. On the outer phase, we are 87 or 88 percent complete. We are really in the home stretch there. We will see
the top portion of the scaffolding coming down this month and then
63 or 64 percent complete on the interstitial space and about 50
percent complete with the rotunda work. And, given all of that, we
still have ample contingency amounts available to us should we
need them. But we are so far along in the job, that it is very unlikely that we will need to use those. I think there is a very distinct
possibility that we will have money left over.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. About how much, do you think?
Mr. AYERS. I couldnt wage a guess on that.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. If you could let us know, that would
be helpful.
When the scaffolding is removed, what will people notice? What
is the biggest differences that people will notice about the dome,
the most visible change after the restoration?
Mr. AYERS. It is interesting that, on the outside, as you take off
13 layers of lead-based paint, the dome and the detail really come
alive, and I have been able to see it up close, and I am really excited about taking the scaffold down and unveiling it for the country, if not the world, to see. I think there is going to be a renewed

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sense of beauty and a renewed sense of the incredible detail that
went into building this dome.
Similarly, I think, on the inside, you will see a slight change in
color of the rotunda. The rotunda has been painted four times since
it was first constructed in the 1860s. And the color scheme that we
have chosen goes back to the 1906 and 1946 era. The current colors
that you see are from the early 1970s and really dont have a historical precedent to them. So there will be a slight change in color.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chairman, just one more question, and then I will just be done instead of coming back to me, if
you dont mind.
Mr. AMODEI. OK.
WORKING CAPITAL FUND

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. We talked about the working capital

fund in my office earlier, but can you explain what the Architects
personnel believe is wrong with the way that we fund your construction division through separate appropriations that we provide?
And can you address the real issue of reduced oversight on our part
if we allow you to move some of those separate appropriations to
a working capital fund?
Mr. AYERS. Sure, I would be happy to. Thank you. We have a
200-person construction team that does work throughout the Capitol complex on a daily basis. And the way they are paid are from
our appropriation in the Senate, our appropriation in the Library,
our appropriation in the House. There are no appropriated dollars
to pay their salaries. They are reimbursed from projects they undertake across the Capitol campus. And so it is an accounting
nightmare for us to be able to track all of that. And a great example of that is: You take a plumber that is doing work today in the
Senate Office Buildings installing a wet pipe sprinkler system, and
that employee is earning annual leave and benefits and sick leave.
And he will take those, perhaps, 2 or 3 months from now, while
he is working on another job. Well, appropriations law will require
us to find a way to take that leave entitlement and pay it from the
job he was working on when he earned it. That is an accounting
nightmare for us to do that, one that is recognized by our inspector
general. Our inspector general recognized our inability to effectively and consistently do that through the long term and suggested that a working capital fund would be a much better way to
run that operation. And we agree.
And, of course, any controls that are necessary to ensure that the
Congress has oversight and that we are transparent about that and
that we are not spending money in any way that hasnt been authorized by this committee I think we would certainly welcome
that.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Well, it would be important if we
allow that shift to make sure that we put a mechanism in place
that ensures that we can maintain the same oversight we have
been able to under the current way you do it.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back and thank you for your
indulgence.
Mr. AMODEI. Yes, maam. The gentleman from California.

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ENERGY SAVINGS

Mr. FARR. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

How much money do you save from these energy investments, on
the bill, on just the, you know, the monthly bill?
Mr. AYERS. The three energy savings and performance contracts
that we installedone in the House, one in the Senate, and one in
the Capitolwas an investment of about $90 million of private
money, and we pay back those vendors through the energy savings.
The money that we are saving, we are actually paying back to
those contractors because of that investment. And so today we have
saved over the course of these projects, $7- or $8 million. The rest
of that has been used to pay back the vendors for their investment.
Mr. FARR. Did that investment include changing the light fixtures?
Mr. AYERS. It did include changing the light fixtures.
Mr. FARR. Are these LED lights? They dont look like it.
Mr. AYERS. Carlos, do you know if these are LED lights?
Mr. ELIAS. Yes, they are.
Mr. AYERS. They are LED lights.
DATA CENTER RELOCATION

Mr. FARR. I need some. Great. We are moving the House data
center to southwestern Virginia. Right?
Mr. AYERS. Correct, yes, we are.
Mr. FARR. And you are very involved in that.
Mr. AYERS. Actually, I am involved tangentially in terms of my
agency has a small data center, and a number of years ago we colocated our data center into the Houses data center instead of running our own. So if the House moves their data center, to us, it
makes sense that we continue to stick with the House and go wherever the House goes.
Mr. FARR. Yes, I presume that the decision to move sort of out
of the Washington area was a strategic one, plus probably cost-effective for real estate purposes.
Our leg branch services, the Library of Congress, wants to colocate their data center with ours. It makes a lot of sense. They are
part of this family. Are you involved in that? I mean, we ought to
be doing this. Who is accountable forthey say they have gotten
no response from anybody and are suggesting they have got a huge
cost involved. And it certainly makes sense if we are going to build
one data center for ourselves, that we ought to include our family
members in that design.
Mr. AYERS. So the data center
Mr. FARR. Is that your responsibility?
Mr. AYERS. It is not. It is with the House Chief Administrative
Officer.
Mr. FARR. Do we have jurisdiction for that office?
Ms. PANONE. I think so.
Mr. FARR. So the Chief Administrative Officer is in charge of the
building for the House itself, for our data center. Right? And yours,
because you are colocated with them, or you are part of that?
Mr. AYERS. The data center in Virginia, that we are speaking of,
they are responsible for that.

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Mr. FARR. And they are also responsible then if the Library of
Congress wants to be there? Are they responsible for that capital
outlay?
Mr. AYERS. I think they are negotiating the real estate deal and
the lease deal, and so they would be the ones that would expand
those negotiations to include others. I am not involved in that.
Mr. FARR. How about for the design of the center? Wouldnt they
use your resources? I mean, you are the Architect.
Mr. AYERS. No. We are not involved in the design of that data
center.
Mr. FARR. Well, Mr. Chairman, I hope that we can useI mean,
the dream here, the idea is, if we are going to move one, lets move
all, and lets all be in one place.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Well, the Library is planning on
piggybacking on this as well.
Mr. FARR. They want to piggyback, but they are not gettingas
I understand itthey are not getting any help or invitation to piggyback.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I am sorry, Mr. Chairman, if I might.
My understanding is that it is in their budget request, and also,
in last years bill, we put language that allowed them to review,
and study piggybacking onto this data center.
Mr. FARR. OK. So everybody agrees it makes sense.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I just met with the acting Librarian,
and he expressed a strong desire for it to happen, and they need
it.
Mr. FARR. Yes.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. He didnt suggest to meyou should
check with them, Mr. Chairmanbut he didnt suggest to me that
there was a challenge.
Mr. FARR. From what I understood is that they have really gotten no feedback, no response from wanting to be a partner in this.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. From the House?
Mr. FARR. Maybe they dont know that it is the Chief Administrative Officer, thinking it was yourI have the question to be
asked of you. So they might think thatthey have been asking
you. And, obviously, you dont have the responsibility for it.
Mr. AYERS. No, I dont.
Mr. FARR. All right. Well, we will check on it.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Yes, the information that I got a few
hours ago from the acting Librarian is that they are working with
House Administration, the Chief Administrative Officer in the
House, and
Mr. FARR. Well, lets check on that.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. They will be with us tomorrow, so we
can ask them then.
ADVICE AND LESSONS LEARNED

Mr. FARR. OK. Fine. Thank you. This is probably my last question. I am leaving, and I am always asking this of everybody because I am always curious as to lessons learned. Is there anything
in your career that you want tolessons learned or advice you
would give to us about the role of the Architect? I mean, it is an
old role. It has been around for a long time.

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Mr. AYERS. It has been around since 1793, when George Washington first laid the cornerstone. And, you know, I think one of the
challenges that all building managers face is managing a massive
backlog of work that needs to be done, and you cant quite get it
funded. I think this committee made such an important strategic
decision in establishing the House Historic Buildings Revitalization
Trust Fund that will really enable us to make the best, the proper
investments in our buildings over the course of generations to
come. And, so, I know, as I look back, that is one of the things that
is so important for me as the steward of the buildings that you all
use on a daily basis.
Mr. FARR. Did that trust fund receive private contributions as
well?
Mr. AYERS. I dont believe it can receive private contributions.
But it can receive contributions from a wide variety of efforts, not
just appropriated dollars or sweeping up unused dollars from the
Architect. It has the ability to receive other dollars as well, but not
private dollars.
Mr. FARR. Well, like foundation dollars, or no outsideit has to
be public money?
Mr. AYERS. Correct.
Mr. FARR. Why is that?
Mr. AYERS. As I look back on my nearly 20 years here, we have
had a number of opportunities to receive public money for a variety
of projects. And I think it is not something that the CongressI
dont want to speak on behalf of the Congress, but my personal
view of the situation is that it is not something that the Congress
is eager to enter into agreements like that, for fear that there is
perhaps some influence or quid pro quo of someone donating dollars. And the Congress, in my personal experience, has always
wanted to fund projects themselves.
Mr. FARR. I am looking at the Washington Monument right now,
which was restored with private money.
Mr. AYERS. It was.
Mr. FARR. And Members enjoy the President series at the Library of Congress, paid for by a private individual. I think it is
time that we revisit that. Families or foundations may want to contribute. I think there has been a call for why the private sector
doesnt do more to support all of these incredible public assets, as
they do in the national parks, as they do in our communities and
libraries and so on, schools. Why not also allow them to contribute
privately to this fund, which is so necessary to preserve the history
of the political history of America?
Mr. AYERS. We did accept some very generous donations when
we constructed the Capitol Visitor Center. And we did accept some
very limited funds when we constructed the National Garden at
west of the United States Botanic Garden. So there has been some
very limited use of that in the past. And there is perhaps opportunity to expand that.
Mr. FARR. Perhaps that could be some report language just to explore it.
Mr. AMODEI. I would imagine that the devil would be in the details: Who do you contribute to? How is it insulated from your concerns?

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Mr. FARR. Firewalls.
CANNON RENEWAL

Mr. AMODEI. Thank you.

Mr. Ayers, just a couple of things. Where are we atand these
are just kind of housekeeping. So Cannon costs, is that on track?
Guaranteed maximum price, all of those fancy things that you guys
are up on, but there is no warning signs on the horizon as far as
Cannon costs go.
Mr. AYERS. That is correct. In fact, just the opposite. We have
recently completed our third cost and schedule risk analysis, and
both of those say we have a greater than 80 percent chance of
achieving this project for the cost that we have identified and the
schedule that we have identified, number one.
Number two, we have also received the guaranteed maximum
price from our contractor for all four phases coming up. And we are
comfortable with that number. And it is within our cost estimate,
and it is our desire to notify you in the coming weeks and move
out and award that guaranteed maximum price contract in the
middle of April.
We have no warning signs, only signs of success at this point.
Mr. AMODEI. Good. Congratulations. How about the disruption
stuff? When are the musical chairs going to start? Is that still
scheduled based on the original information put out? And I know
you could go on a long time. Please dont. Although you are not in
Cannon anymore. Are you?
Mr. AYERS. She is in Longworth.
Mr. AMODEI. And I know you are not in Cannon. Just supposed
to be junior Republicans that are in Cannon.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. That is what you do when you are in
the know about what is coming.
Mr. AMODEI. Only if you plan to sleep there. So how is that
going?
Mr. AYERS. We have moved over 400 people to the ONeill Building already, and as we approach phase 1, it is in December that
we need to move Members out of the west wing in Cannon and
move them to Longworth and Rayburn. And we are on track to do
that.
Mr. AMODEI. OK.
Mr. AYERS. Prior to December, we will be moving non-Member
spaces, so late summer, and early fall, we will clean up a few other
committees that are still in that space, and we dont see anything
holding us back from emptying out a wing of that building and
being able to turn it over to our contractor in January.
Mr. AMODEI. Does that have anything to do with why you decided to leave, Mr. Farr? You are just like: I am not hanging
around for that program.
I do want to let the ranking member know that I had some questions about future use of the page dorm. Took a tour of it a while
back, shared those with the Architects staff and House Administrations staff, and they did a phenomenal job of saying in a very
professional way that those are some of the dumbest ideas that
they have ever heard. And so I am not going to speak for the Architects Office, but when they get back to you with their report,

53
please have your heavy coat on and stuff like that, even if it is a
warm day for: Well, have you thought about this, that, or the other
sort of thing? And it has basically just kept me minding my own
business, even though I walk by it every day.
But I completely agree with you in terms of the oversight stuff.
It would be nice to know beforehand and have some meaningful
input into that process.
I wanted to thank you publicly for the access that we have had
to your divisions, whatever they are called, in terms of going
through the various shops. You know, with your folks in the paint
department, the folks downstairs in the metal stuff, the wood shop
people and all of that have been absolutely great. You have been
very responsive, which means that we dont have a lot to do in
these formal settings.
I still do want to talk to the yard guys, though, because I am a
frustrated farmer that lives on a 90by110 subdivision lot. So
dont take that seriously. But anyhow, I want to thank you for that
in terms the transparency and our requests have all been timely.
CAPITOL POWER PLANT

Finally, the last thing I have is just an update on how things are
going at the Power Plant. We have boiler things. We have chiller
things. What is the quick and dirty on that?
Mr. AYERS. So, on the boiler side, obviously, we need to replace
a boiler now, so we have entered into a contract with Washington
Gas to provide a cogeneration system that makes electricity and
steam at the same time. That contract is signed, and in the fall of
2018, that will be fully operational and part of our inventory.
Our work on the chilled water side is moving out very, very well
on the refrigeration plant revitalization project, and we have the
last of the chillers that we think we are going to need in our 2017
budget request.
Mr. AMODEI. OK. Good. Well, we have got to keep those pansies
in Longworth cool in the summer. So that is good.
I dont have anything else. Is there anything else of the other
committee members? Then this meeting is adjourned.
The committee will get back together tomorrow at 1:30 to hear
from House Administration and Leadership. Thank you.
[Questions submitted for the record follow:]

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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 2016.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
WITNESSES
HON. KAREN L. HAAS, CLERK
HON. PAUL D. IRVING, SERGEANT AT ARMS
WILL PLASTER, CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER

OPENING STATEMENT

OF

CHAIRMAN GRAVES

Mr. GRAVES. I will go ahead and call the subcommittee to order.

Welcome, everyone.
Today we will begin our hearings on the Fiscal Year 2017 Budget
Request of the House of Representatives. I would like to welcome
the officers of the House.
Ms. Haas, thank you for joining us, Clerk of the House.
Sergeant Paul Irving, Sergeant at Arms, thank you.
And, our new Chief Administrative Officer, Mr. Plaster. Welcome. Congratulations to you on your new assignment. I look forward to working with you.
Also in attendance we have Mr. Kerry Kircher, the General
Counsel; Ms. Strokoff, who is Legislative Counsel; and Mr. Seep,
who is Law Revision Counsel. I also understand that we have Ms.
Theresa Grafenstine, the Inspector General, with us as well.
So thank you, everyone, for joining us.
This 2017 budget request for the House agencies is just under
$1.2 billion, which is a little over $6 million more than last years
enacted amount. Much of the work that each of you and your offices do on a daily basis in an ideal world is certainly invisible. And
if everything goes well, your work stays behind the scenes and generally unnoticed.
However, we wanted you to know that this committee appreciates you and all the work you do for the House; and to keep the
House secure, virtually and physically, and to ensure that we have
all the proper tools. So we certainly recognize all the work you do
for our work environment and keeping the environment safe.
So, I look forward to working with each of you as we have certainly some challenges facing us in this fiscal year 2017. As we had
a discussion yesterday, obviously there will be questions, and our
job is to review the request and scrutinize where possible and save
taxpayer dollars where possible. But I know that you all have presented something that is responsible, that accomplishes the objectives you have in mind. The committee will certainly take that into
consideration.
And at this point, I would like to welcome our ranking member,
Ms. Wasserman Schultz, for any remarks she might have.
(63)

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OPENING STATEMENT

OF

RANKING MEMBER WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I join the chairman in welcoming our witnesses.
Mr. Plaster, welcome to your first hearing in Appropriations. I
know you are new to the job and that you are acting in a so-called
interim capacity. But you have been of service to the House of Representatives for many years. We are looking forward to working
with you and looking forward to your insights.
The budget before us, unfortunately, provides no increases for
the Members Representational Allowance, our office budgets, committees, or leadership offices, with some increases for the officers
of the House and for hearing room renovations.
Mr. Chairman, I consider the House, as you know, the staff, operations, and its buildings, our primary ward. We are responsible.
As unsexy as our portion of the budget for the United States of
America is, it is a critical component because we are helping to
make sure that the greatest democracy the world has ever known
is able to function.
It is in both parties interest to ensure that the House functions
at the highest levels so that we can attract and retain the best and
brightest talent. We have heard countless discussions here where
we lose to other agencies because we continue to be less and less
competitive when it comes to the salaries that we pay, the benefits
that we provide, and our ability to make sure that we can provide
the best and brightest with enough attraction and reason to come
and work for us instead of other competing potential opportunities.
We have to leave this institution better than we found it, and
that is our challenge and our responsibility as members of this subcommittee. I dont believe that we will accomplish such a laudable
goal by providing the Capitol Police, for example, with an 8 percent
budget increase while providing the House with a zero percent increase, which we did in the Omnibus that we just passed in December 2015. We cannot carry out our constitutional duties with those
types of priorities.
Assuming that our allocation remains the same in fiscal year
2017, I certainly hope that we can realign our priorities.
I know I might be starting to sound like a broken record. I dont
mind that. I am going to continue to advocate for our staff and for
the institution.
If you recall last year, Mr. Chairman, I reported that in 2013,
legislative assistants who work for the House of Representatives
were being paid $6,000 less than they were in 2009, when adjusted
for inflation. And just in case we forgot how difficult it is to survive
when you are just starting out in your career, I will point out that
a median-priced one bedroom apartment in the DC area costs
$2,000 a month. After paying for rent and eating in the House cafeterias, we are lucky that we can keep anyone on staff.
Now, let me highlight something in the Fiscal Year 2016 Omnibus that we were able to accomplish. With the help of the Clerk
of the House, the committee funded $7 million in the Financial
Services bill to increase the capacity of the National Archives and
Records Administration to store archives of the House and Senate.
The National Archives and Records Administration, which is fund-

65
ed in the Financial Services bill, is running out of space to store
Legislative Branch archives. So that is not in our bill. NARA is,
though, of great benefit to future Congresses, to historians and researchers, who will use this information to judge us when we are
long gone.
That was phase one, and I hope we can impress upon our colleagues on that subcommittee to keep this project going. And I
would recommend to any member who has not been over to the Archives and been in the Legislative Vault, it is a sight to behold.
And, you have an opportunity to have that.
Mr. Chairman, you may even want to bring us on a field trip,
as you have been wont to do, to the Archives, because the things
that we will have an opportunity to see will, I think, motivate all
members of this subcommittee to impress upon our Financial Services colleagues how important that is.
But before I conclude, Mr. Chairman, I do want to voice my frustration at how our committee continues to be circumvented outside
of the regular order, which I know is a top priority of Speaker
Ryan.. Decisions about funding are being decided in ways that cannot be brought to light through congressional oversight because
they are being made outside of our ability to oversee them.
We have spent from Federal appropriations more than $6 million
combined on the Benghazi Select Committee and on the Energy
and Commerce Committee for the Select Investigative Committee
on Planned Parenthood. The House budget presented to us to consider does not reflect the increased budget requirements for these
partisan lawsuits, the Benghazi Committee, or the additional needs
for the Planned Parenthood panel under Energy and Commerce.
To add insult to injury, the Benghazi Committee, unlike every
other committee of the House, and a committee that has existed for
years now, does not receive its own appropriation and does not
even receive funds through the Committee Funding Resolution that
is voted on by the whole House. In other words, we have unelected
people deciding how much money that committee gets.
To add insult to injury, unlike every other committee of the
House, it does not receive its own appropriation and it does not receive funds through our Committee Funding Resolution.
We may never agree whether these activities are worthwhile, but
for the sake of regular order, a refrain I have heard is being important to your side of the aisle over and over and over again, we must
insist that these items be funded through the regular appropriations process and authorization processes. Not only do we not have
oversight of how millions are being siphoned for political games,
but this is threatening Congress real work.
These new political committees and panels come at the expense
of our standing committees that have enacted very little authorizing legislation on important issues of our day. We can only surmise that if we funded those committees for their real policy work,
that this Congress could actually begin working for the American
people again and passshudder the thoughtbipartisan legislation.
Mr. Chairman, if for no other reason than for transparency for
the American people, this subcommittee should insist on regular
order and require the justifications to provide budget details on

66
these committees and on the partisan lawsuits that we have, unfortunately, been funding at every turn. We know that they can provide that. They have gone on long enough.
I have heard the General Counsel answer questions of mine, Mr.
Chairman, in the past, where he said, we just dont know what the
costs might ultimately be. Well, neither does the Department of
Justice. But they are required to provide us with a budget justification and anticipate what their needs are, even when it comes to the
uncertainty of their lawsuits.
So within our limited scope, I look forward to hearing the testimony of the witnesses that are here today, and I yield back.
HOUSE OFFICERS OPENING REMARKS
Mr. GRAVES. Thank you, Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
And now we will take an opportunity to hear from the officers.
I would love to start with Ms. Haas first, ladies first, and then Mr.
Irving and then Mr. Plaster. If each of you could just go in that
order, and then we can have questions after that. Members will
likely direct questions to one or all of you at some point.
My understanding is our calendar, as long as yours allows for it,
goes to about 2:30, that is what we were expecting here, no later
than that, then we will have Library of Congress after that. So that
sort of gives the Members a lay of the land here.
So, Ms. Haas, thanks for joining us, and look forward to your
comments. If you can briefly share what you have already prepared
and know that your written statement will be submitted for the
record.
OPENING REMARKSCLERK

OF THE

HOUSE

Ms. HAAS. Thank you. Chairman Graves, Ranking Member

Wasserman Schultz, and members of the subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you regarding the operations
of the Office of the Clerk and our fiscal year 2017 budget request.
Thank you for providing the resources and guidance to allow us to
continue to carry out our duties and responsibilities for the legislative and institutional operations of the House.
There is much to report since our last hearing. We have made
great progress on our Web site redesign and expect a beta version
to be available in January of 2017. The Web site will focus on our
legislative responsibilities and have a robust search function that
will include more advanced vote searches.
We have completed updates to the docs.house.gov. Web site, the
financial disclosure electronic filing Web site, and an internal requisitions program. The requisitions project will streamline internal
functions and make it easier to reconcile GPO billing.
We continue our efforts to make legislative information more accessible. I am proud to report that, working with our partners, the
Bulk Data Task Force released bill status information in bulk form.
This was a significant step forward and well received by those that
use our data regularly.
Outreach to Members and committees regarding their records
continues to be a priority. With the support of this subcommittee,

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we were able to make progress on the storage challenges we face
for House records.
Working with the House Historian and his team, we have seen
tremendous growth in the use of the history.house.gov Web site.
This unique historical content is available to the public and used
frequently by teachers and researchers.
The robust hearing schedules have increased the demands on our
Official Reporters. I expect that these services and others provided
by our office will continue to see growing demand.
With our professional staff and the support of this subcommittee,
we are ready to meet those challenges.
Thank you for your time, and I am happy to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Haas follows:]

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Mr. GRAVES. Thank you.
Mr. Irving, thank you.
OPENING REMARKSHOUSE SERGEANT

AT

ARMS

Mr. IRVING. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Ms. Wasserman

Schultz, and members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you to present the Sergeant at Arms Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2017.
Before beginning, I would like to say that it is truly an honor to
have an opportunity to serve this institution, and I look forward to
continuing to work with you and the other members of the committee as the year progresses. My full testimony, which I have submitted for the record, has my entire fiscal year 2017 budget.
As you know, the Office of the Sergeant at Arms provides security, safety, and protocol services to Members, committees, and the
staff who serve them. To accomplish our mission, we have an extremely dedicated team whose diverse strengths provide the highest level of professionalism and expertise.
Employees of the Sergeant at Arms have supported numerous
special events over the past year, including the unprecedented visit
of His Holiness Pope Francis of the Holy See, the annual State of
the Union address by the President, off-site retreats, visits by
heads of state, honorary ceremonies, concerts, and other events
throughout the year. Planning is currently under way for the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States.
As Sergeant at Arms, I receive real-time intelligence information
providing an overview of campus wide, local, national, international
events which may have an impact on the safety and security of the
House of Representatives. The information is gleaned from a myriad of sources through a partnership with Federal, State, and local
intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
However, as a point of note, despite our best intelligence assessments, prudent security protocols are always our best measure to
keep Members, staff, and visitors safe. All of these resources and
efforts in intelligence gathering assist me in evaluating security
countermeasures in the context of new and emerging threats. And,
I want to assure this committee that I carefully evaluate and balance the security protocols and security posture of the House with
the effects that any new security protocol may have on the business
process of the institution.
In partnership with the Capitol Police, my office maintains a
strong, effective outreach program with Member offices regarding
district office security. We offer guidance on best practices, providing information on how to obtain a thorough security review and
how to coordinate security surveys when requested. We will continue to provide this essential service to offices, remaining mindful
of the need to provide cost-effective recommendations and solutions.
Two of our most successful initiatives to date have been the implementation of mail hoods in the district offices and our Law Enforcement Coordinator program.
In closing, I would like to thank the committee once again for the
opportunity to appear before you. I want to assure you of my deep
commitment, and that of my entire office, to providing the highest

76
quality services for the House of Representatives, while maintaining the safest and most secure environment possible. We remain
vigilant and focused on security preparedness, striving to adhere to
the strict level of fiscal accountability entrusted to us by the House
of Representatives.
As always, I will keep the committee informed of my activities,
and will be happy to answer any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Irving follows:]

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Mr. GRAVES. Thank you, Mr. Irving. Thank you for your service
too.
Mr. IRVING. Thank you.
OPENING REMARKSCHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER
Mr. GRAVES. Mr. Plaster, welcome. Your first hearing before us
in your new capacity.
Mr. PLASTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. GRAVES. And we certainly congratulate you and welcome
you.
Mr. PLASTER. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Wasserman Schultz, members of the committee, I appreciate the
opportunity to appear before you today on behalf of the entire team
of women and men who serve the House in the Office of the Chief
Administrative Officer.
This is the first time I have appeared before the committee, and
I am quite honored to be here today alongside the Clerk and the
Sergeant at Arms. While I have only been in this position for 2
months, I have served the House for over 25 years, and I can safely
observe that the close working relationship that the House officers
have fostered in recent years, among themselves and with the
other service providers in the House, has been vital in ensuring
that the institution is supported effectively and efficiently.
I look forward to collaborating with the committee on this budget
request in order to tackle the many issues and challenges facing us
in fiscal year 2017, particularly our work to improve the delivery
of services to the House community and our comprehensive program to protect House IT systems from a persistent and evolving
threat.
The Fiscal Year 2017 Budget Request for the Office of the Chief
Administrative Officer is $117,165,000, which is flat with the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016. This request will support the
CAO priorities in information technology and improving CAO core
services, such as financial management, acquisitions management,
logistics, human resources, and other support services.
Within these core services are activities supporting cybersecurity,
payroll and benefits, mail delivery, food services, broadcasting,
human capital, furniture and furnishings.
Although our request is flat, the CAO does anticipate increases
for fiscal year 2017 in personnel, annual maintenance, and licensing, Housewide subscriptions, and key projects, such as knowledge
management. However, we also anticipate savings due to decreases
in contractor support, modular furniture installations because of
the Cannon Renewal Project, and project initiatives that will be
transitioning from implementation to operational status.
We are confident that by utilizing available funds efficiently, and
working in concert with our House partners, we will be able to
meet and exceed the expectations of House Members and staff.
Again, I appreciate the opportunity to be here today, and look
forward to addressing your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Plaster follows:]

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Mr. GRAVES. Thank you very much.
I know each of the members of the committee have done their
diligence and read through each of your proposals and recommendations from the budget requests. I want to start off today,
I am going to yield my time to Mr. Rigell, who is a great advocate
of good government and has done an amazing job on the Appropriations Committee. We were sad to see him announce that he wasnt
going to run again this year.
Mr. RIGELL. That is quite an introduction, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you.
Mr. GRAVES. You have been a great member of the committee
and we appreciate you.
Mr. RIGELL. I appreciate that.
REMARKSMR. RIGELL
Mr. RIGELL. First, I am a student of management, and I have
been so impressed by the House leadership and management on
the support side since I have gotten here. And, so I appreciate the
good work that you do for the American people.
Let me say that there is not a whole lot of common ground in
this institution, unfortunately, but the comments that the ranking
member made, I think that she has made a good point there. You
know, I feel like in some ways at the House we have kind of
flogged ourselves on the back of cutting our own budget, which I
think is a principle of leadership by example I very much respect
and try to integrate into my own life. In the administration there
wasnt any commensurate sacrifice there. That troubled me.
But as I see the young people who work in our offices, and how
they do struggle, and the distances some of them are driving to get
away from the high cost of living here, that I think this needs to
be looked at again, and it is part of maybe, ideally, a comprehensive fiscal solution.
ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES

But there was just one question, Mr. Chairman, I had, that I
would like to direct to Ms. Haas, Office of the Clerk.
You had mentioned in your testimony that there are some challenges with the voting machines, the cards themselves, things like
this. And, I had not experienced any trouble whatsoever. I am not
saying they dont need attention, but what are you experiencing
that causes you to want to address that?
Ms. HAAS. Sure. Well, the one challenge that we ran across this
particular Congress was on the voting cards. The cards are old
technology. They havent been updated in the last 15 years. So it
was difficult to get those cards. They no longer make those, so we
had them specially made.
Mr. RIGELL. I see. I see.
Ms. HAAS. So the voting system itself, we have been going
through a multiyear upgrade of the system. So the next part of
that upgrade includes the voting stations, the cards, and then the
wiring under the floor. All of the wiring needs to be upgraded.
Mr. RIGELL. I see.
Ms. HAAS. It has not been done in quite a long time.

92
The stations themselves, another thing that we are looking towards updating, is in the most recent election we had two candidates that ran that were visually impaired. Our current system
doesnt allow for visually impaired, doesnt assist them in any way.
So we are looking at adding Braille type to the new stations.
Mr. RIGELL. I applaud that.
Mr. Chairman, my questions are quite simple today, and that is
it. And, I thank you for the opportunity and yield back.
Mr. GRAVES. Thank you, Mr. Rigell.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
CAPITOL POLICE BOARD

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you very much.

Sergeant, I would like to start with you. Good afternoon. I have
asked you and the Chief over the years about the appropriate layout and management structure for the Capitol Police Board, on
which you sit.
For others that are not aware, the Chief, as I mentioned yesterday, is not a full member of the Capitol Police Board. He or she
is only an ex officio member. And that setup really cripples our
ability to conduct oversight. We cant question the Senate Sergeant.
The Senate cant question our Sergeant. So the Chief is left to answer for decisions that, frankly, were set in motion by the Board,
yet we dont have consistent oversight over those decisions because
we cant ask everyone making them questions about them.
Now, I know the Senate appropriators and the authorizers have
asked GAO to update a review of the Capitol Police Board, and
that is ongoing. I support that.
STRUCTURE OF THE CAPITOL POLICE BOARD

But I would like to ask you, does the Board in its current
iteration and management structure remain useful? Should there
be changes to the way it makes decisions and its oversight responsibilities? And how would you address my concern that Congress
really doesnt have enough ability to conduct oversight over the
Boards decisions? Because we cant do that with the entire Board.
I have other questions. For example, like, how much of the Capitol Police budget would you estimate is due to the directions from
the Board or from the Sergeant versus what the Capitol Police believes are priorities? And then I want to ask you also about the garage security initiative.
So if you could address the management structure first with the
Boards role?
Mr. IRVING. Of course, Congresswoman. The management structure as it currently exists, as you know, as House Sergeant at
Arms I am very responsive to Members of the House, leadership,
and my committees of jurisdiction. When there is a concern, I raise
that, obviously, before the Board, if there is a House concern. The
Senate Sergeant at Arms does the same. When he receives an issue
from his leadership or his committees of jurisdiction or his Membership, he will raise that to the Capitol Police.
Many times the issues are in synch, we have the same issues.
Sometimes not. Each Chamber has its own, as you know, set of

93
unique circumstances. We work very closely together and with the
Chief. The Chief, we consider him a full partner.
Ex officio, there is a historical aspect to that. The Capitol Police
Board hires the Chief, and I believe that is one reason why, for
that matter, may be ex officio.
THE HOUSE SERGEANT AT ARMS VS. THE SENATE SERGEANT AT ARMS

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Let me give you an example of what

I am talking about.
Mr. IRVING. Yes.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I appreciate that the Sergeants each
go to one another when there is concern from the other side. But
we have had conversations outside of this setting when you and the
Senate Sergeant disagreed on the appropriate response to a security concern.
Mr. IRVING. Yes.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. They made a different decision than
you chose to when it came to an evacuation issue.
Mr. IRVING. It was the lockdown during the Navy Yard.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Right, that lockdown issue.
Mr. IRVING. Yes.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. So if that was something that this
subcommittee chose to review, I could only talk to you about it, to
the Chief, and maybe the Architect of the Capitol, who, by the way,
also sits on the Police Board, which most people dont realize. I
dont have the ability, if there was a difference of opinion, to hold
the Senate Sergeant accountable.
Mr. IRVING. I will say that later this month the Capitol Police
Board will be meeting with the committees of jurisdiction on both
sides, House and Senate, authorizers and appropriators. This is
something, actually, that we have been discussing for some time to
increase the transparency.
CAPITOL POLICE BOARD OVERSIGHT

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. So this subcommittee is going to be

meeting with the Capitol Police Board along with the House Administration?
Mr. IRVING. Yes. There is an invitation, I believe for the 16th of
this month, but if not, forthcoming. We have discussed this issue
of transparency, and we think it is important for our oversight
committees on both sides to hear what the Capitol Police Board has
to say, listen to how we make our decisions, talk about some of our
agenda items.
REFORMING THE CAPITOL POLICE BOARD

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. My specific question is, do you think

there needs to be reform to the way the Capitol Police Board functions and makes decisions in order for us to ensure that we dont
have to rely on you being willing to sit down with us in a meeting?
Mr. IRVING. I dont think so. I believe that I, as I report to your
committee, to the appropriators, to the authorizing committees, to
leadership, I believe that I receive clear direction and oversight,
and I carry that to the Board. I also make recommendations to you,

94
to leadership, to authorizing committees, to Members on my best
view on our security posture.
But at the end of the day, it is a combination of working within
the business process of the institution and those security parameters that I would recommend, and as you know, all the other factors that go into it, our fiscal resources and what have you.
There is that same dynamic on the Senate side. And we do our
best to let the Chief of the Capitol Police be the Chief, and run the
department. And, as we get together as a Board, talk broad policy
oversight issues, strategic plan, the future of the department, and
those sorts of things.
So, I think the Boards structure is small, it is nimble, with both
Sergeants at Arms, the Architect, and the Chief. We can get together pretty quickly on the fly and make some pretty quick decisions. But I am always available to interact, obviously, with our
committees of jurisdiction and leadership if there is anything that
is concerning to you that I must bring before the Board.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I look forward to the GAO recommendations, but I remain concerned.
GARAGE SECURITY INITIATIVE

I want to ask you about the garage security initiative.

Mr. IRVING. OK.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. The Chief was clear yesterday in my
questions of him that he was directed to initiate the garage security project by you as the Sergeant at Arms and by the Board, and
you as a Board member. He did not deny that it is a vulnerability
that we are only doing it in one part of the garage. And he was
not able to explain why we needed to bypass the appropriations
process, as we were able to previously put it through prior to this
year.
My question is, Mr. Irving, why wasnt this project justified and
explained as part of the budget justifications in previous years?
Why did funding need to be added and moved around during the
year after we held hearings and allowed all Members to vote on the
Legislative Branch appropriations bill in the House?
The Chief was clear that the direction to do this project in what
I see as a potentially shoddy and haphazard manner, was outside
of the regular order. Again, the strength of our security is reliant
upon its weakest link. We are not securing all the garages. So if
I am a terrorist, I am going to go to the garage that is not secure.
Can you explain why this had to be done outside of the regular
order? The Chief, in answer to my question, said there were no specific credible threats that were pending or that we were concerned
about. So what pressure did you have to do this project without full
funding and in the middle of the appropriations process?
Mr. IRVING. OK. Let me see if I can address your concern.
Over the last number of years, I have received some degree of
funding for the initiative from this committee. And, I cannot thank
you enough for your support in beginning to move the process forward, because we have identified the House garages as a vulnerability, one of our big vulnerabilities.
So we did receive funding in fiscal year 2014to begin to implement the initiative, which would start with the infrastructure. It

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was a combination of infrastructure money for the Architect of the
Capitol to run conduit, wiring, and such to our doors so we would
be able to control the doors from the garages into the House office
buildings. And there was also some funding provided for securityrelated equipment for the doors, locking mechanisms and such.
NEED FOR THE GARAGE SECURITY INITIATIVE

So as we were at the point in time whereas that phase one was

nearing completion, we were looking at world events. We had a
particularly tough year 2015 relative to terrorist hits. We have had,
based on world events, intelligence, we felt
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Elsewhere in the country.
Mr. IRVING. Elsewhere in the country, correct. We felt it was important to move forward on the initiative as quickly as possible.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Who is we?
Mr. IRVING. I would say the Capitol Police Board. The Capitol
Police Board.
The fact that we had the infrastructure in place and the Capitol
Police had surplus, had equipment, magnetometers, x rays. The
missing piece, frankly, was the manpower piece, the FTE piece. In
working with the Chief, we realized that we could rearrange some
internal posting and find some efficiencies, some short-term efficiencies, to begin to move forward with the initiative.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. So the Capitol Police Board on its own
initiated a mid-appropriations cycle addition to this project without
any credible threat or indication that there was anything that required us to move outside the appropriations process even though
that is how we were proceeding prior to this fiscal year?
Mr. IRVING. I will say that I take responsibility for any action
that is taken, decision that is taken
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I know you take responsibility. I am
asking if it was your and the Capitol Police Boards initiative to
take this initiative outside the appropriations process even though
there is no credible threat, there is no emergency, and we were proceeding in an orderly way?
Mr. IRVING. I will say that the fact that we had reached the stage
in the garage security initiative that allowed us to do some initial
screening, even though it is not the full screening that you alluded
to, but it is incremental
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Did you feel that you were not going
to be able to accomplish what you needed to by going through regular order in the appropriations process that we are in the middle
of right now, which is a matter of a couple of weeks difference?
Mr. IRVING. No, I felt that we could find some efficiencies to get
the process underway. The garages have been a tremendous vulnerability for us. I understand that we did not have intelligence
that wasany real-time intelligence. But nonetheless
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Sergeant who directed you to initiate
this project in this way?
Mr. IRVING. I have to tell you that I take responsibility.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I know you take responsibility. That
is not my question.
Mr. IRVING. It was a Board decision.

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Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Only a Board decision? No one else
was involved?
Mr. IRVING. I work with staff, with leadership, with the committees of jurisdiction, both authorizers and appropriators.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Who directed you to initiate this
project outside of regular order?
Mr. IRVING. I have to take responsibility for that, Congresswoman. I cant tell you
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. So you initiated it on your own because in your analysis you decided, without any outside influence
or pressure, that this was necessary and so essential that we remove it from the regular order process.
Mr. IRVING. I did not view it as outside of the regular order process considering the fact that
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Did you decide this on your own, of
your own initiative, with no outside pressure or direction?
Mr. IRVING. No, I worked very closely with the Committee on
House Administration on this project. But I would say that ultimately the decision was mine to move the process forward.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. So no one else but House Administration and you?
Mr. IRVING. The leadership staff was also involved. But again, I
was the one who
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Did the direction come from the leadership?
Mr. IRVING. I wouldnt say that Ithe relationship is such that
direction comes from leadership when we are putting a security
posture in place. The implementation of a security posture is my
decision. It is a give and take with the staff in terms of what our
vulnerabilities are, intelligence. And ultimately, I have to take the
responsibility for
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Was this brought to you?
Mr. GRAVES. Ms. Wasserman Schultz, let me hit the pause button
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chairman, I am getting extremely
frustrated. I dont think I am getting veracity in the responses to
my question.
Mr. GRAVES. I can understand that and sense that and understand the Sergeant to say he takes responsibility for the decisions
that have been made, and he made that clear.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I understand that. That is not my
question. I will have other questions for the other remaining officers, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. GRAVES. And lets all keep in mind that the Sergeant at
Arms and his team has a responsibility to keep this complex safe.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. They also have the responsibility to
be truthful when they are asked questions.
Mr. GRAVES. I wouldnt suggest that he was anything but truthful. He took responsibility, is how I understood it to be.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. OK.
REMARKSMR. PALAZZO
Mr. GRAVES. Mr. Palazzo.
Mr. PALAZZO. Are we sticking to the 5-minute rule?

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Mr. GRAVES. We will see how you do.
Mr. PALAZZO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I will keep it short.
Thank you, Mr. Irving, for what you do to keep us safe here. And
I think anybody in certain positions, we have to take actions to
make sure that they are protected and taken care of.
I appreciate everybodys service. It is sometimes not a thankful
job, but we thank you.
I would like to lend some of my remarks to my colleagues and
the ranking member. I think I was hearing it right, you know,
some of the cuts that we made to our representational accounts
have been ridiculous. Over a 3-year period, 20 percent in cuts.
We are all elected to come up here by our constituents and do
a job. There are several components of our job. One is legislatively.
But you can be here 20 years and never pass a bill. But back home,
we have casework, we have interactions where constituents come
to us. And when they come to their Member of Congress, they are
desperate, right? They dont come to us first. They usually come to
us last. They exhaust whatever approach they have with whatever
Federal agency.
In my district, we have the Veterans Administration, we are
heavily military-oriented. So we do a lot of VA worka lot of VA
workand I want to have talented staff that is not afraid to work
hard and make sure our constituents are taken care of.
So I just think any restoration to our MRA that we can make it
is good business, because we want to keep talented people around
so we can take care of our customers, which are our constituents.
Twenty percent cuts, I mean, I wont beat it to deathI might
but it worked so well for us the first year we came back and cut
the other wrist. It just makes no sense.
But we have to lead by example, and I think we have done that
by freezing our salary increase for, what, 5, 6 consecutive years.
Mr. FARR. Ten years.
Mr. GRAVES. Ten?
Mr. PALAZZO. It shows that wage increases, we have seen that
flat in the real world, and we should only be held subject to that,
unless of course we are performing. But our performance hasnt
been quite that stellar.
HOUSE CYBER SECURITY

But getting back, can we talk cybersecurity? Mr. Plaster, I think

that would be you. From time to time we get pop-ups warning us
about scamming and phishing. And some staff takes that as, you
know, it is like they lock up for a minute because they are maybe
doing some research and they go to a site that they shouldnt, and
they have to do, I guess, control-alt-delete and start over.
I am OK with that. I think we need to have strong IT protections
in place because cybersecurity is real. There are bad actors out
there that want to know what we are doing, whether we are talking about maybe Armed Services or Homeland Security issues, they
want access to our servers and our communications. We are not alwayswe think we are safe and secure in our office and we can
type and say or do anything that we want. Might not always be the
case.

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Can you tell me what we are doing to try to get into the 21st
century and not lag behind the people that are out there trying to
steal our secrets, steal our information?
Mr. PLASTER. Yes.
Mr. PALAZZO. And are we investing enough? Because I think it
is extremely important. But there is a perfect world and there is
a realistic world, and try to get somewhere in-between.
Mr. PLASTER. I will try to cover all of those.
What we are doing to adjust our cyber defenses against an evolving and very sophisticated threat, as you point out, is we are evolving our defenses from an older model that came up over the last
10, 15 years that was moreit was more focused on perimeter security on the House network. We had very sophisticated tools that
were put in place, in laymans language, to stop the bad guys at
the front door. And that was, I am oversimplifying our model for
IT defense.
Lately, as has been evidenced by events that have been in the
news, OPM, Target, and others, the nature of the threat has
changed fairly dramatically and the sophistication of those who are
trying to infiltrate our network has increased dramatically. And
they are not knocking at the front door anymore, they are finding
much more creative ways to get into our network and then move
within our network once they are inside.
THREE GENERAL AREAS OF CYBER SECURITY

So looking forward, we are concentrating, if you will, on three

general areas. One is the perimeter defense. Those are, again, very
sophisticated tools run by very, very smart people that are monitoring what is coming and going out of our network.
Just to give you an idea of the volume of network traffic, we received in 2015 about 200 million emails into the House of Representatives. Roughly a third of those could be categorized as virus,
malware, or spam. So we are stopping, roughly, a third of 200 million emails coming into the Housethat is just emailsusing our
tools.
We have in place, and we are putting more into place, tools to
monitor the traffic within the network because the threat now is
the very bad guys, if you will. Once they get in they move around.
So they may come in through one office, but once they are on the
network what they try to move around within the network to get,
kind of information you are talking about, financial information,
communications, and then they want to take that and get it out of
our network without us knowing.
So we are putting in place additional tools to monitor for that
kind of activity so that we can stop it if they try to do that. And
we are segmenting up, if you will, the network to make it harder
to move around from one office to another.
And then the third component really is the users, 12,000 users
on the House network. Every one of them is a potential vulnerability. And that is why you see the requirements on password
changes and information security training.
The 12,000 users that we have are the subject of threats. The
very sophisticated threats are coming after the users. They are
looking for user passwords. They are looking for users outdated

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software and equipment that hasnt been patched, even in district
offices, because they can get a toehold into our network that way.
So users and the awareness of users about the security threats,
about the phishing, and how to combat that on the user level is important. And we are going to have to do more to make sure that
Members and staff are aware of the scope of the threat and the role
that they play in combating that.
ADEQUATE RESOURCES FOR CYBER SECURITY

Mr. PALAZZO. Do you believe that we are giving you the resources
to make sure we are safe? And again, I think we have talked about
this is a must-have versus if-we-could-afford-it-have. Are we doing
that?
Because cyber warriors or people involved in the IT, it is such
a huge demand. Are we paying them to keep them in or do you see
a turnover? Because if you hire good staff, you train them up, and
they become very proficient with the system, you dont want to lose
them to a private contractor or public company, because they are
having their own issues and threats to deal with, like our military
and homeland security.
Because something as simple as your itinerary, we could very
easily become a soft target if someone wants to do something with
your calendar. Of course, I am not near as important as many of
the other Members or people in leadership, but travel in the district or going on a codel, that information in the wrong hands could
be dangerous.
Mr. PLASTER. It could. And, I can tell you that it is not a hypothetical threat, There are people who are pursuing that kind of information for whatever reason, whether or not it is for a physical
threat or not. But there are plenty of attacks on our network, and
they are looking for all of that information, all of your information.
So it is not hypothetical, it is happening.
RECRUITING AND RETAINING QUALITY STAFF

In terms of recruiting and retaining the quality staff so that the

folks on our team are better than the folks on the other team, that
is a struggle. A lot of these guys probably could command multiple
times, not just more in the private sector, but multiple times what
they can here. So we have to provide them with other reasons that
arent financial for working for the House and for staying here, and
we have to work very hard to give them those sorts of rewards.
But we have very good people, and I am very content with the
quality and the dedication of the staff that we have. We have a
new CISO, relatively new CISO, who, again, I am glad is on our
team.
So in terms of are we spending enough? I think a lot. I can answer that question in the same way you could answer, are we
spending enough on physical security? You could spend more. You
could always spend more and be more safe. So where is the sweet
spot? We are spending a lot. We are not uncomfortable with our
current budget request. We could probably spend more and be marginally more secure. We probably could not spend a lot more and
do so in any justifiable way. You want to give me a lot more, I will
spend it, but I would have a hard time

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Mr. PALAZZO. Might not be the most efficient.
Mr. PLASTER. Right. I would have a hard time defending it.
Mr. GRAVES. It comes out of your MRA, by the way.
Mr. PALAZZO. I cant afford anymore.
Mr. GRAVES. Another thought-provoking questioner of our committee, Mr. Farr, who has served well for many, many years.
this is your last term as well. We appreciate your work on the
committee.
REMARKSMR. FARR
Mr. FARR. I am getting congratulated by everybody. Half of them
are friends and the other half of them are congratulations and good
riddance.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, I just want to make a comment. The spam screening,
they are pretty good. They pick out my wifes emails and send them
to spam and then I can clear them. But the Arabic messages in Arabic get all the way through, right to me. I dont know how those
escape the spam filter.
I want to go back to this issue that Congresswoman Debbie
Wasserman Schultz talked about. What triggered it is this magnetometer, putting it in the Longworth Building, in the garage. And
it just seemed, in looking at it, is why here, why now, why this
place?
You said you initiated this from what happened in Riverside and
so on, in San Bernardino County, as an intel sort of problem. Yesterday, the Chief told us we have 32 police departments in this
town. If it is an intel issue, it ought to be shared with all them and
they ought to be involved in perimeter security, because I always
learned what you want to do is perimeter security.
I know you have plans for installing an underground alarm
around the perimeter of the Capitol, providing full camera coverage
of the Capitol Grounds, to bolster the physical structure of the
outer planters and Olmstead wall, to upgrade the lighting on the
Capitol plaza. I hope that is not going to create light pollution. All
of these would be enhancements to counter outside threats. Why
dont we do that before we install just a magnetometer in Longworth when we are not going to do anything about Rayburn, which
has 80 doors?
We always thank all of you for your leadership role. I would like
to thank everybody in this room. We all work for the same government. This is what I love about this committee: It is the only time
that everybody in here is part of this family. These discussions on
our budget essentially are our household finance. It is about how
do we pay these people and do the things that we have hired them
to do.
And when I asked about this in my office it was: Well, dont
worry, it is not going to cost us anything. But it is not in your
budget. It is in the Chiefs budget. And here they asked for 72 new
officers, 48 civilian positions, and more.
MAGNETOMETERS THROUGHOUT THE HOUSE CAMPUS

So I pointed out to him yesterday, as we were speaking, there

was a line to enter Longworth, as I see all the time. My office is

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on the first floor of Longworth and I go through the front door.
Often that door, you have two magnetometers in there, one of them
is just totally there, never manned.
We had people last week, when it was raining, standing in the
rain all the way to the curb. When I go in there and ask the officers, I say, Can you call and see if you can get some more up here
to help you? because I am out there telling people to go around
to the sides or whatever, the officers on duty just kind of shrug
their shoulders and say, We cant get any help.
ACCESS TO THE CAPITOL CAMPUS

So why dont we prioritize where our problems are right now

rather than building that magnetometer at the Longworth garage?
You are not going to have the manpower to do it. And it hasnt,
as Debbie pointed out, it hasnt been discussed and budgeted.
But I think the most thing that it does, it is just an affront to
staff So much since 9/11 has happened. The whole West Front of
the Capitol is shut off, this incredible space and beauty of this spot
where you really see the Mall. But the public cant go there. I dont
know why not.
Then, we close the garages. And so what we are doing is shutting
it down so the people who work here have a harder time getting
in. I do my town hall, electronic town hall meetings at night. It
starts at 9 oclock or 9:30 Washington time. That is 6:30 California
time. So my staff isnt out of the building until 11 oclock at night,
and the garage is closed, or they cant get in at 9 oclock to come
back and do the town hall meeting because we dont have enough
people to man the garages.
So why dont we create the priority that really allows us to do
our work rather than distrusting our staff?
And lastly, I would just like to ask you as part of this question,
how many Members carry weapons?
GARAGE SECURITY INITIATIVE CONTINUED

Mr. IRVING. OK. First, Congressman, I appreciate very much

your thoughts on the garage security issue, because, believe me,
these decisions weigh heavily on me.
The vulnerability of our House garages has been something that
has been in the background for a long time. We feel that proper
security protocol would be to include the House garages or the
House office buildings in our secure perimeter. So similar to the
Senate and the Capitol, once you enter, you are in the secure perimeter, and then you, for example, would not need to get, lets say,
rescreened going from the House office buildings to the Capitol.
Mr. FARR. So you have put one in Longworth now. When are you
going to put them in Rayburn?
Mr. IRVING. Well, it would be incremental. That would be something, obviously, working very closely with the committee to eventually work toward.
Mr. FARR. So you get screened coming in from Longworth garage,
but you can drive in the Rayburn garage, get out of your car, no
screening, take the underground, and go right in the Longworth
Building. You will make those Rayburn parking places a premier
place for the Longworth employees.

102
Mr. IRVING. It is such a large project getting all our House garages secure that we felt an incremental approach, little by little.
To do it all at once would be
ORDER OF THE LONGWORTH SECURITY INITIATIVE

Mr. FARR. Why pick on Longworth then? I mean, what is the impact on the morale of staff? You know, this isnt fair.
Mr. IRVING. Well, the Longworth, Cannon, the east and west underground were certainly the easiest, along with the Ford Building.
The Rayburn, as you have said, is quite a bit more of a challenge.
Mr. FARR. Why not do it all at once?
Mr. IRVING. We could do that, but we would rather get some
Mr. FARR. Is it such a high priority you have to do that right
now? I mean, we are going to solve the San Bernardino threat by
putting up one magnetometer in Longworth?
Mr. IRVING. It is a judgment call, but I think those of us in the
security field would like to put as much security in place as possible.
Mr. FARR. Sure you would love it. That is mission creep. I think
mission creep is, one of the criticisms I have of your team. You
even suggested that we could do a lot more through interoperability of all our other law enforcement agencies. You are building
an empire on the Hill. Your budget is bigger than my town of
200,000 people that has a gang killing almost once a week.
I would love to have this budget for my town, where we really
do have threats. And those are drive-bys, innocent people getting
killed, kids walking home from school, mistaken identity, and
boom, you are dead.
I dont talk about this budget back in my hometown because people would be angry as heck. They would think that weYou are sort
of taking care of ourselves first and not taking care of them.
I think that we have to set priorities. I think the Longworth
magnetometer just doesnt seem to have gone through a normal
process of thinking this out. I think you ought to be more involved
with working with all these other law enforcement agencies. Why
do we have to have our own SWAT team, our own dog team, our
own bomb squad, our own chemical squad just among the Capitol
Police?
CAPITOL POLICE BOARD CONTINUED

And as I understand it, the Board sets all of those mandates,

then they come in here and need all this money for overtime. I
mean, the budget is just expanding. At the same time, our Member
budgets dont expand. The airfare to California has just doubled.
GSA just negotiated a wonderful Government rate with United,
and it is double what it was. Do you think our MRA gets bigger?
So what does staff do? I let off, so I can fly home.
If we are going to take care of the family, lets take care of everybody, not just say that law enforcement gets it and everybody else
has to wait their turn.
SCREENING MEMBERS

So, Mr. Chairman, I am concerned that if we dont do this right,

we create an internal dissension. Staff is not getting COLAs, but

103
seeing others getting it. And finally I would like to know if, with
all this security, how many Members of Congress carry weapons?
Mr. IRVING. We dont know that number, considering that Members dont get screened. We dont know that number.
Mr. FARR. But they do?
Mr. IRVING. I am sorry?
Mr. FARR. Members do have weapons and they can bring them
into the Capitol?
Mr. IRVING. They are permitted by statute to
Mr. FARR. Statute? I thought it was against the law to bring a
weapon into the Capitol.
Mr. IRVING. There is statutory authority within the Capitol. For
example, they can bring firearms to their office. I can provide you
with all that information. And because of that, we dont, as you
know, we dont screen Members, so we just have no
Mr. FARR. You have no idea?
Mr. IRVING. No.
Mr. FARR. So here we are going to take all our staff, and you
have got to go through double, triple inspection, but Members can
walk in here with a weapon and you dont even know if they have
it, to get away with it.
Mr. IRVING. That is the statute.
Mr. FARR. That is a statute.
Mr. GRAVES. Mr. Farr, you have done a great job of taking us exactly to 2:30.
Mr. FARR. I have another question.
Mr. GRAVES. And I appreciate that.
Mr. FARR. One more.
Mr. GRAVES. I know Ms. Wasserman Schultz does as well. And
as I think about this, and I know we do have the Library of Congress next, there is probably more to discuss, I would suspect, and
I am open to that. And if the Sergeant at Arms is open to that,
I would suggest that we meet together again at another time and.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. In an open hearing?
Mr. GRAVES. We can have thatwhy dont you and I have that
discussion together, because I think you bring up some fair points,
Mr. Farr does, and there might be other members on our side that
would have some other questions as well. But as we end the committee.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chairman, I did have other questions for the remaining officers. And I would think there would be
more questions for this group than there is going to be for the Library and for the Copyright Office.
Mr. GRAVES. You think so?
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Just a guess.
Mr. FARR. I have a question of the Administrative Officer. I dont
know how you are going to do this.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I would just request, respectfully, that
if we could lengthen this meeting, because I dont think the next
meeting is going to be quite as long.
Mr. GRAVES. If we can
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Even though I am asking the most
questions, Mr. Chairman.

104
Mr. GRAVES. I would suspect to lengthen this meeting a little we
would have to shorten the questions a lot, because our questions
tend to be very long.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I will do the best I can. But we have
an abbreviated hearing schedule, so we are having to cram a lot
in, in just a few minutes.
Mr. GRAVES. I understand.
Let me say for the Sergeant at Arms real quick, just hearing the
discourse here a second, I dont in any way want you to sense that
there is disrespect for what you or your team does. We are grateful
for the security you provide. And, I dont personally believe it is the
role of this committee to micromanage each and every activity you
do. It is, obviously, our role to take heed to the requests you have
made, the spending, and then to make our recommendation back
as we pass the bill through.
But I suspect there is an opportunity for each of us to get back
together to maybe resolve some of the questions that are still outstanding.
Mr. IRVING. I would look forward to that. I really would.
Congresswoman, I do want to address some of your points as
well, because I dont want there to be a question, a veracity question in your mind. If we have more time we can chat a little further
about this. I just want you to know that I do make ultimately
many Members coming to me day in and day outI dont really
make those. But I would like to engage in a little more conversation with you on this.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. As would I.
Mr. GRAVES. You have a very challenging role, but a great track
record with this complex. We are grateful for that.
So one question each? Is that what I understand?
Mr. Palazzo, you have a question for anyone else on the panel?
Mr. PALAZZO. Was Mr. Farr trying to make a point to let our
staff carry weapons? I think it is only fair, if Members are carrying
weapons and if you go through enhanced security, maybe we
should let our staff carry as well?
Mr. FARR. Well, I think I was agreeing with your suggestion that
we ought to lead by example. If we are going to not allow anybody
else to have weapons in this Capitol, you certainly shouldnt allow
Members to have them.
Mr. PALAZZO. I apologize. Like my wife says, I only hear what
I want to hear. I am just exercising my second amendment.
AMOUNT OF DOLLARS REPROGRAMMED FOR LAWSUITS

Mr. GRAVES. Ms. Wasserman Schultz.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have two
questions for the CAO. So I would ask your indulgence in asking
both of them.
Mr. GRAVES. You asking them together, jointly?
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. They are completely different questions, but I am happy to ask them together. And I can assure you
that the CAO knows they are coming.
Mr. GRAVES. OK.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Briefly, last year Mr. Kircher and I
went round and round over his inability to budget for the partisan

105
lawsuits that appear to be cropping up against the administration
over the Affordable Care Act. Guantanamo Bay now is being prepared, as is Planned Parenthood and the Planned Parenthood Select Committee. We recently learned that Mr. Kircher has hired another law firm to eventually enter into legal action against the
Obama administration to prevent their efforts at Guantanamo Bay.
We might disagree on the merits of the cases, Mr. Chairman,
that is not my issue. But again, you can sense the running thread
through everything I have asked in our last two hearings is that
we are doing things that we absolutely could anticipate and have
the right to exercise oversight for here outside of the regular order
process. As a result, unelectedno disrespect to Mr. Kircher, but
he was never elected to anything, and neither was the CAO
unelcted people are making these decisions. So the decisions about
millions upon millions of dollars made outside our regular order
process arent responsible.
There is no agency that knows exactly what litigation they are
going to enter into, but there is a possibility of, as the Department
of Justice does, anticipating what their needs are going to be. But
we are doing a disservice to the House if we continue to fund lawsuits through reprogrammings, because those are not public documents, no one sees that. And I know, Mr. Chairman, you are committed to regular order, and so many of your members are.
So since we dont get an estimate of the lawsuits, I do want to
enter this article into the record, if I might, because we do need
to know what the House majority has spent thus far on taking this
administration to court.
[The information follows:]

106

107

108
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I would like Mr. Plaster to give us an
estimate of the total cost that has been reprogrammed from other
House offices since 2011 until now to the Office of the General
Counsel. And I would like Mr. Kircher to provide details of his
budget, including how much has been spent or budgeted for each
litigation that he has entered into from 2011 until now. If they can
get me that information outside the meeting, I would appreciate it,
because it is important.
SODEXOHOUSE FOOD SERVICE VENDOR

Mr. Plaster, the other question I have is regarding Sodexo, the

new vendor that has taken over the cafeterias, as well as our convenience store and dining room. I dont have to tell you that there
has been an explosion of complaints about both the quality of the
food and the cost of the food. Again, we have hard-working young
people here who are not earning very much money, and it costing
them an arm and a leg to eat is really unfair. I mean, when you
have The New York Times write an article about how bad and expensive the food is in the House cafeteria, you know you have a
problem.
So I would like you to answer, when the contract is up for review? We are putting up a lot of money for infrastructure to redesign the House cafeteria, and I want to make sure they succeed.
But what are we going to do to turn this problem around in the
confines of the contract?
FEMININE HYGIENE PRODUCTS AVAILABILITY

The other thing I want to raise here is the Longworth convenience store. We seem to have forgotten that there are women who
work in the Capitol complex. It has come to my attention that the
convenience store has stopped stocking feminine hygiene products.
I know that some might be concerned about my going there. But
if you are not a woman, it is tough to understand that when you
need a feminine hygiene product you need one immediately. So for
the convenience store to stop stocking products like that is really
inconvenient, the opposite of the purpose of a convenience store.
The other thing, which I know may have more to do with the Architect, but if you could take it as your responsibility to communicate with the Architect, every woman has faced the frustration,
whether it is a staff person, a visitor, a Member, of going into one
of the womens bathrooms anywhere in the Capitol complex and
finding a completely broken feminine hygiene products machine. I
had my staff text me today a machine that has an out of order sign
on it, and I will show it to you. It is right here. Out of order. Just
today.
These are essential items that are just as essential as toilet
paper is, and it is absolutely a necessity to remedy this situation.
I would like to ask you what we can do about making sure that
the convenience store is stocked fully with the range of feminine
hygiene products that women need, and also to make sure that we
have functioning machineswhich, quite franklymy colleague,
Grace Meng has raised this as wellshould be free. It is like
charging for toilet paper. And we certainly wouldnt want to do
that. So if you could respond to that concern.

109
CAO RESPONSE FOR LAWSUIT REPROGRAMMING QUESTION

Mr. GRAVES. Mr. Plaster, real quick. The question on the dollars
from 2011 forward. If you happen to have that, feel free to share
that figure. I imagine that is a pretty simple number.
Mr. PLASTER. $2.891 million since 2011.
CAO RESPONSE FOR SODEXO QUESTION

Mr. GRAVES. And then I know the cafeteria question is something you are probably prepared to give a bit of response to. And
then the other questions, I dont know if you are ready for a response today.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. He is ready.
Mr. GRAVES. And welcome to your first hearing.
Mr. PLASTER. Obviously, food service, to no ones surprise, has
been often brought up and brought to my attention since my first
day on the job, and with a variety of complaints. It is a daily occurrence where I am engaged with our contract management folks and
the Sodexo management in an effort to help Sodexo better adjust
to the environment that they are now working in here at the
House.
I believe they are committed to making those adjustments. They
may not be happening as fast as all of us would like them to. But
I think they are sincere in their efforts to effect the changes and
the improvements that have been asked of them. So we are working on that every day.
TERMINIATION TIMELINE FOR SODEXO FOOD SERVICES CONTRACT

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. And we have the ability to terminate

their contract for cause?
Mr. PLASTER. For cause we would, as in any contract.
The specific answer to your question is, when is their contract up
for review? It would be 2019. The contract started last year. So
their base period ends in 2019.
As for the other issue, I found out this morning that complaints
similar to yours had already been registered, and the vendor has
responded already with some additional stock. I was in contact
with the Superintendent of the House office buildings this morning
and made sure they understood your concerns.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you.
Mr. PLASTER. As we speak, I believe, making sure that those are
addressed.
FEMININE HYGIENE AVAILABILITY (CONTINUED)

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you. I mean, not to go into too

much detail, but I saw what was added to the inventory in the convenience store today, and that is insufficient.
Mr. PLASTER. We will continue to review it.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. So if we could expand the availability,
that would be great.
COMMITTEE AND CAPITOL POLICE BOARD MEETING

And, Sergeant, the meeting you referenced is a staff meeting, it

is not a meeting with Members. So that is not the same thing. Re-

110
lated to the Capitol Police Board and House Administration, that
is a staff-level meeting.
Mr. IRVING. Yes, that is staff, but we can certainly, absolutely,
do Members as well. So I will address that with my counterpart,
with the Senate Sergeant at Arms.
Mr. GRAVES. Mr. Farr, you had an additional question.
INCREASING MEMBERS REPRESENTATIONAL ALLOWANCE BUDGET

Mr. FARR. Just a suggestion on the Sodexo issue. My staff gave

me this note that Francisco Fimbres, who is supposed to be the liaison with Sodexo, never responds to emails and has no on-site
phone. There is not even a suggestion box in the cafeteria anymore.
You have got to give some way to get complaints. They are all
going to comethe main issues are all going to end up in your office.
But I have a bigger question, and I think it has been a theme
all around here, is that, why doesnt your office ask for a bigger
budget for Members offices? I mean, this budget that we are dealing with, the appropriations bill deals with, is Library of Congress,
Capitol Police, the Architect of the Capitol, the GPO, Congressional
Budget Office, Library of Congress, CRS, and that is just to name
a few. All those budgets request funds to cover natural salary increase, merit awards, and COLAs. For fiscal year 2017, the COLAs
for these agencies is 2.6 percent, which is exactly what the President asked for in the pay raise request, plus locality pay.
Last year, this committee was forced to return $33 million to the
Treasury because the House had hit its authorized cap and could
not use these funds to increase allocations to House offices. These
could have been used for our COLAs. Staff hasnt had a COLA increase in 5 years Members in 10 years. That is our fault because
we dont vote for it.
But not our staffs. Havent had a COLA increase in 5 years. But
in the interim, the inflation costs have risen 7.7 percent. That
means our offices had to do the same or better jobs with less
money, and that stretch is really causing problems in our office
now.
So my question to you is, why dont you ask for an increase in
our Members offices? And what is keeping you from bumping up
the budget number?
DETERMINING THE MEMBERS REPRESENTATIONAL ALLOWANCES
BOTTOMLINE

And I want add to that, as I said, GSA just came out and negotiated the new Government rates which Members fly by, and from
Washington to San Francisco it is double what it was. And so we
have to just eat that. And what happens is you end up, frankly,
having to let people go who thought they had a career here, or at
least whatever career you have in politics.
You ought to be the champion for our own offices.
Mr. PLASTER. Remember, I have only been on the job for 2
months. Hopefully, I can have a little bit of leeway in not having
to relate exactly what the deliberations were prior to my being in
the office between the budget office and the various stakeholders

111
that weigh in on the budget formulation numbers before the CAOs
office is submitted.
It is a discussion between our budget office and this committee
and the House Administration Committee and others that leads to
a consensus about what the submission is. If the committee
Mr. FARR. Well, why did $33 million have to be returned?
Mr. PLASTER. I cant speak to that. I am not familiar with the
circumstances around that. We can find out and we certainly get
back to you on that.
Mr. PLASTER. From last year you are talking about?
Mr. FARR. Yes.
Mr. PLASTER. But in terms of the request for fiscal year 2017, if
the committee feels that it is important to add money to the budget
request for the MRA, that is certainly within your prerogative.
Mr. FARR. Do you take into considerations like this GAO? We all
have to travel with that rate. Maybe in some areas it has gone
down. But transcontinental traffic has really gone up.
Mr. PLASTER. I believe the travel costs are somewhat factored
into the formulation of the MRA allocation by the committee. But
I dont want to speak for the House Administration Committee.
Mr. FARR. Say that again?
Mr. PLASTER. Not all MRAs are the same. Not every Member
gets the same MRA.
Mr. FARR. I know the California delegation wrote a letter, presumably to you, asking that we getor I guess to the committee,
asking them to increase the MRA for travel, long distance travel.
Mr. PLASTER. That would have been probably to the Committee
on House Administration.
Mr. FARR. There was no response.
Mr. GRAVES. That it, Mr. Farr?
Mr. FARR. Yes, sir.
Mr. GRAVES. I would recommend also, and we can do this from
our office, is just reach out to the House Administration Committee
as well. They are heavily involved in formulating what MRAs are
comprised of for each and every Member based on some formulary
calculation that is adjusted based on cost of living and other things.
That is my understanding.
Mr. FARR. We dont go over the Senates budget, but the rumor
was that the Senate gave their staff COLAs.
Mr. GRAVES. That is quite possible. As you will recall, the Senate
has not cut any spending in the Senate or Senate offices or any of
their funds or COLAs since, I guess, since 2010. While we have
taken the 21 percent cuts, they, in fact, were increasing their office
budget.
Mr. FARR. It is a good thing we are leading by example.
Mr. GRAVES. The Senate doesnt often follow our great example,
trust me.
CLOSING REMARKSMR. GRAVES
To each of you, thank you for joining us today and for the extended time you gave us.
Ms. Haas, you had the easiest question of the day apparently.
Mr. Irving, we will look forward to following up.

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And, congratulations on your successful completion of the hearing today, Mr. Plaster.
And I guess we will hang around a few minutes then for Library
of Congress.
[Questions submitted for the record follow:]

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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 2016.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
WITNESSES
DAVID S. MAO, ACTING LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS
ROBERT R. NEWLEN, CHIEF OF STAFF

OPENING STATEMENT

OF

CHAIRMAN GRAVES

Mr. GRAVES. If everyone is ready, we will start our next hearing.

Thank you for joining us today.
We would like to welcome acting Librarian of Congress David
Mao and the Librarys Chief of Staff, Robert Newlen. Thank you all
for being with us today and for your patience as we were getting
through the last hearing.
We will start this panel concerning the Librarys 2017 budget request, and then we will have an additional panel after we go
through some of the questions with the Library itself, and that is
to discuss bringing the Copyright Office into the digital age.
I am personally pleased to see that the Library is positioning
itself for the future through a lot of the critical improvements to
its information technology. It is something I know we discussed a
lot last year. Additionally, the Library continues to make available
its collections in digital as well as physical form, all while
transitioning to the new leadership.
The Library is requesting $667 million, which is an increase of
over $73 million from 2016s appropriation. That is just over a 11
percent increase that they are requesting. And as we have shared
with all the panels before us, obviously that is your request. Our
role, and as you have seen and heard, is to question, scrutinize,
and see if there are areas of savings that we can achieve for the
taxpayers, but also respecting that your request was put forward
in good faith in order to carry out the acts and the duties that you
see fit.
And next, I would like to welcome Ms. Wasserman Schultz for
any opening remarks she might have.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you.
OPENING STATEMENT

OF

RANKING MEMBER WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Thank you, and welcome back to the subcommittee, Mr. Mao.

There have been many changes at the Library since you were in
front of the subcommittee last year as the Deputy Librarian. We
continue to honor the service of 28 years of our retired beloved librarian, Dr. Billington, who now has moved to his new role as Librarian of Congress Emeritus, which I know we were really thrilled
to be able to bestow upon him. It was well deserved.
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We also have a new nominee for this esteemed position. The
President just nominated Dr. Carla D. Hayden, who I am looking
forward to meeting, who has admirably served in a variety of roles
in libraries across the Nation, and she will bring a wealth of experience and knowledge. She would be the first woman and the first
African American to become the Librarian of Congress if the Senate moves forward with her confirmation, and I hope they will do
so in a timely fashion.
I would be remiss, though, if I did not thank Mr. Mao and the
Library of Congress Chief of Staff, Robert Newlen, for their extraordinary leadership during what has been a significant time of
transition. Mr. Mao and Mr. Newlen have not missed a beat, and
they have not waited to make necessary improvements, notably regarding governance issues and the Office of Copyright. You both
stepped up to the task and provided leadership and service, and we
thank you all for your efforts.
The Library, as I have said many times, is the jewel of this bill
and of our jurisdiction, and the return on investment that we get
from your work is immeasurable. The Library has always had a robust campaign to leverage private sector dollars for important programming, and Congress, researchers, and eager learners everywhere immensely benefit from it.
One fantastic example of this collaborative nature of the Library
is the Rosa Parks Collection. The collection, on loan for the Library
for 10 years from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, has made approximately 7,500 manuscripts and 2,500 photographs available to
researchers and the public.
Looking more closely at this budget writ large, the Library has
appropriately put forth a request that prioritizes IT needs, information technology needs, storage deficits, and data management. Our
Library must keep pace with rapidly changing technology and have
the right staff to do so.
Two of the Librarys components are seeking increases that deserve serious consideration, Mr. Chairman, if for no other reason
than their importance of their mission to Congress and the Nation.
CRS budget has remained virtually flat since fiscal year 2014.
For reference, CRS was funded at $112.5 million in fiscal year
2010, and their current appropriation is only $106.9 million, $5.6
million less than levels provided 6 years ago. So not adjusted according to inflation, actually less.
As our own staff budgets remain flat, Members and committees
continue to rely on CRS experts to provide critical analysis of legislation and quick turnaround of information that are used by Members and committees. I mean, I would argue that our need to rely
on CRS is even more critical given the flat funding that we have
had in our MRA budgets.
Although this subcommittee oversees the smallest bill, the Library is an example of why we must fund agencies that have high
returns on our investment. GAO and CRS both fall into that category by helping Congress analyze the vast executive branch, its
many programs, and other critical information that benefit the
American people.
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you having a second panel with
Maria Pallante, the Register of Copyrights. We put a lot of require-

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ments in the bill last year to put Copyright on a path to modernization. We just received a 5-year plan that we asked for in the
omnibus on Friday. I am looking forward to reviewing it.
Finally, as a result of our bill, the public will provide comments
on ideas for funding strategies to accomplish this critical modernization. Ultimately, it will require some combination of Federal
appropriations and increases in user fees. We should have those
comments back before we mark up a bill. So we have a lot of
ground to cover today with the Register, and I look forward to
hearing from both panels of witnesses.
Mr. GRAVES. Thank you.
We will invite Ms. Pallante to join Mr. Mao in a few minutes,
after we go through this panel, but feel free to summarize your
statement and know that your statement will be submitted for the
record as well as your statement for the Register of Copyrights and
the Director of CRS.
OPENING STATEMENT

OF THE

ACTING LIBRARIAN

OF

CONGRESS

Mr. MAO. Thank you very much.

Chairman Graves, Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz, members of the subcommittee, good afternoon. Thank you very much for
the opportunity to provide testimony in support of the Library of
Congress fiscal year 2017 budget request. We are very grateful for
the continued support that you and the Congress give to the Library. And in particular, I want to express deep gratitude for your
help last year with some of our urgent fiscal collection management
needs.
The Congress has sustained its Library for more than 215 years.
It is the largest collection of the worlds recorded knowledge ever
assembled by one institution. And now, with over 162 million
items, the Library includes the worlds largest collection of legal
materials, films, recordings and maps.
Library staff have provided research and analysis to the Congress for more than 100 years through the Congressional Research
Service and almost 200 years through the Law Library. And the Library has supported and protected U.S. creativity and innovation
since it became the national home of the copyright function in
1870.
But the Congress has been and remains the Librarys primary
focus. Our highest priority as an institution is to support the legislative, oversight, and representational work of the Congress.
I appear before you today during a time of significant change and
opportunity for the Library of Congress. As we prepare for new
leadership for the first time in almost three decades, our goal is to
position the Library to serve the Congress and the American people
in a future where technological advancement drives change at an
accelerating pace. The Library must adapt to this rapidly changing
environment.
Over the last year, we reconfigured the Librarys organizational
structure to meet increasing demand. We also released a new strategic plan for 2016 through 2020 that provides a path forward and
is deliberately flexible to accommodate needs as they evolve.
As part of the realignment and to support the new organizational
structure, the Library made critical leadership appointments of a

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Chief Information Officer and a Chief Operating Officer, which centralize oversight of the Librarys information technology and operational infrastructure functions.
Additionally, we appointed a director of the newly created National and International Outreach unit to lead consolidated outreach activities, including collaborative efforts with other institutions.
The Library of Congress fiscal 2017 budget request is for approximately $667 million. It is a 11 percent increase over the Librarys fiscal year 2016 budget. And of this, 3.5 percent covers
mandatory pay and price level increases, or approximately $23 million.
The balance of the increase represents critical investment in information technology and related infrastructure, the care of and access to our digital and physical collections, and human capital with
new expertise.
As the important work of the Library continues, demand for our
services grows. We therefore seek to achieve much-needed transitional improvements, particularly in response to the Government
Accountability Office findings on the Librarys management of information technology.
We are dedicated to strengthening our information technology
and physical infrastructure that will significantly leverage the Librarys capabilities and capacities. Because complete transition
cannot be accomplished in one year, however, we must first address
the most urgent shortfalls in key infrastructure areas: information
technology, care of and access to our collections, developing and
maintaining human skills.
Through several years of declining budgets, we compromised and
took risks in these areas, often making difficult choices to cover
mandatory cost that ensured current operations while sacrificing
investment for the future. Continually funding near-term operational demands at the expense of long-term investment has allowed some mission critical areas, such as the data center/primary
computing facility, to reach the point where they represent serious
risks.
Much has changed since the Library put key infrastructure into
place in the 1990s and early 2000s. Technology has advanced, congressional and public demands have changed, and some infrastructure has become outdated. The Librarys budget request, which represents transition and transformation, aims to position the Library
to move forward.
To avoid mortgaging the future by continuing to support infrastructure that cannot handle current and future demands, we must
make long-term investments that move us in the most economical
way and bring in new expertise. Our future service to the Congress
and the American people depends on having a modernized infrastructure and one that is efficient, proper, and lasting.
Chairman Graves, Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz, and
members of the subcommittee, the Library is both Americas first
cultural institution and part of the innovative infrastructure of
America. So I thank you again for supporting the Library of Congress and for your consideration of our fiscal year 2017 request.

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[The prepared statements of Mr. Mao, Dr. Mazanec, and Ms.
Pallante follow:]

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CONGRESSIONAL DIALOG

Mr. GRAVES. Great. Thank you. Thank you for your statement
there.
And I was just thinking back as you were giving your comments
there, I know in the past you have generally sat in that seat and
with Dr. Billington sitting where you are. So it is big shoes you are
filling, I know a big void, but tremendous history and heritage that
he has provided, and we are grateful for that. And appreciate you
stepping in during this interim period and look forward to continuing working with you.
Quick question from my end and then I will go to Mr. Palazzo,
I will yield the rest of my time to Mr. Palazzo, if you have a question.
PRESERVATIONMASS DEACIDIFICATION

Last year, a lot of focus was spent on protection of books and

manuscripts and such through the deacidification process. What is
the plan for fiscal year 2017? Is it maintaining the 200,000-book
level of protection?
Mr. MAO. Mass deacidification is one of the preservation tools
that we have in our toolkit for preserving all of our materials. It
is one of the ways that we will continue to preserve our materials
going forward.
Mr. GRAVES. And you suspect you will stay on the goal? I know
that you have a lot to get to over the years.
Mr. MAO. Yes.
Mr. GRAVES. Are there objectives, number of books or manuscripts over time?
Mr. MAO. Exactly, and we will tweak those as we see fit. Certainly, we have done a large amount of mass deacidification, and
we see less material as a whole coming in that may need mass deacidification. And we try to balance all of our preservation needs.
Certainly if we do one type, it comes at the expense of another, as
with any budget. And so we are looking at all of our preservation
needs, and certainly mass deacidification is something that we plan
to continue.
Mr. GRAVES. Thank you.
Mr. Palazzo, I yield the rest of my time to you.
MASS DEACIDIFICATION PROGRAM

Mr. PALAZZO. To kind of follow up on the chairmans question, I

know we budgeted $5.5 million and we got 200,000 booksI think
that was part of that fiscal year 2015 budgetand a million manuscripts, and then the same amount of money for fiscal year 2016.
Have we done the same amount of books? Can you give me a number? Are we projected to do again another 200,000?
Mr. MAO. We are projected to continue on with the plan that we
have moved forward, yes. It depends. The quantity will be tweaked
depending on how many books actually come in and how many actually need the treatment, and the increase in unit costs.
Approximately 190,000 books and 1 million manuscript sheets
will be treated.
Mr. PALAZZO. And so it leads me to ask, there seems to be a
slight uptick in fiscal year 2017 of 121,000. Is that because you are

154
going to do more books, or is that covering something different? Or
do you expect more books because it is a budget request increase.
Mr. MAO. Exactly. And there is additional cost for that. We are
moving forward, and we anticipate that there might be some more
books. It really is a little hard to tell the exact numbers, but I can
certainly get back to you with some firm numbers, if you would
like.
Mr. PALAZZO. And I could have done some more digging of my
own, but the $5.5 million, is that personnel? Is it process? Is it materials? Chemicals?
Mr. MAO. It is a combination of all of that. Part of it is, of course,
we have a contract on mass deacidification, so certainly there are
costs associated with that, and there are costs associated with the
different pieces of the project.
Mr. PALAZZO. Is this off-site?
Mr. MAO. Yes, some of it is.
Mr. PALAZZO. Is there a way a Member can walk over to the Library and get you all to show us how you actually
Mr. MAO. Sure, certainly. Come over, and we would be happy to
show you what we do.
Mr. PALAZZO. All right. That was my primary question. Thank
you.
Mr. GRAVES. Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

If I can ask Dr. Mazanec to come to the table, please.
Thank you very much. Thank you for the work that you do to
and all of the folks that work at CRSto support Members of Congress who really need the information that you provide to be able
to represent our constituents effectively.
Your request is $114.4 million. That is a 7 percent increase over
last year, which I dont find excessive, given the reference I made
to how flat your funding has been. Not only flat, it has been concave over the last 4 years. You are currently funded, as I mentioned, at $5.6 million less than in your fiscal year 2010 level.
Can you outline for us, one, if the subcommittee continues to
deny your budget request increases, what are the consequences?
What is the impact? Second, what has been the effect of absorbing
inflationary increases and mandatory pay increases with additional
appropriations as you have gone through that process?
I have another series of questions for you as well.
Dr. MAZANEC. OK. Our FTE ceiling is 651. But in reality, last
year, in fiscal year 2015, our budget was able to support an FTE
count of 609. We have a flat budget in 2016. That will require us
to reduce our FTE count to approximately 599 in order to absorb
the increase in personnel costs and inflationary costs.
CRS PERSONNNEL

Ninety percent of the CRS budget is personnel cost. During my

tenure at CRS, we have taken measures to increase our operational
efficiencies. As an expert left, we would look at their portfolio and
divvy it up and assign issue areas to other analysts. But there is

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only a finite capacity there, and CRS analysts are now spread exceedingly thin. In many areas, we are one deep.
So what would be the consequences of a flat budget? If CRS capacities are not maintained, gap areas will intensify. Right now we
have a gap due to an unanticipated departure in Russian and
Ukrainian foreign policy. In these areas, as gaps develop, we cannot always immediately backfill, which means it becomes a challenge for us to produce the highly analytical, nuanced work that
you expect of us.
I can almost state with 100 percent assurance that timelines will
increase, especially in the areas that are high volume: education,
health care, defense, appropriations, and budget. Analysts will be
challenged to update and maintain the currency of their reports.
And finally, one more thing. I dont think we will be able to effectively leverage the vast amount of data that is currently being collected to better inform the work that you expect of us.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you.
And that is my concern as well, is we need CRS to be responsive.
I know when I have asked for CRS reports, Mr. Chairman, you
want to know what you want to know when you want to know it,
and it often is time sensitive. And so this constant flat funding or
even reduced funding will continue to cause us problems.
PUBLIC ACCESS TO CRS REPORTS

Dr. Mazanec, I am anticipating that we are going to have another debate about the release and public posting of your reports.
And, Mr. Newlen, I would like to also ask your opinion on this
since you were there at CRS for a very long time.
My concern with basically making CRS like GAO, where you post
your reports on a Web site, is that it would basically bring all the
work that you are doing to a screeching halt. I mean, GAO, we
have great respect for the work that they do. They have a completely different function. They provide comprehensive analysis on
complex topics. They make recommendations to Congress.
And what they are not billed to do though is act quickly and responsibly and privately. And my concern is that CRS, if you have
a new interface that is public, in other words, your interface is with
the public not with Congress, that we are going to create another
GAO.
So could you share with the subcommittee your insights, both of
your insights, on CRS culture and how any change to those policies
related to releasing reports could change that culture. And I know
supporters of releasing reports to the public on the CRS Web site
point to language in the appropriations bills as the reasons that reports are not listed. So if this language was removed, would that
then allow CRS to release their reports?
And lastly, so I am mindful of the time, is there a middle ground
on this issue that we could release certain informational reports
through the House Clerk and the Secretary of the Senate so that
the House itself is controlling what gets released as opposed to
turning you into an agency that basically directly serves the public
instead of serving as a service for the Congress?
Because there are times when, as I have said before, Mr. Chairman, you and I might have an idea that we may never decide to

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explore. But if we change the way CRS works and suddenly everything, every idea we ever explore is immediately posted on a Web
site, then a lot of things that you begin to explore as a Member of
Congress, as a legislator with the speech and debate clause being
in the Constitution, wouldnt be ripe or ready or even appropriate
at the incubator stage of preparation.
So I just would love to have both of your thoughts.
Dr. MAZANEC. Do you want to start?
Mr. NEWLEN. Go ahead.
Dr. MAZANEC. As you know, CRSand I think I can speak for
the Librarydoes not take a formal position on this. It is a complex situation, but there are potential impacts and unintended consequences. And let me just run through three, one of which you already mentioned, which is that as we release our reports and our
products more broadly, it may alter the way we conceptualize and
perform our work for Congress.
Right now, we work for a congressional audience. We write for
a congressional audience. We meet your timelines. And we are high
volume. As we take on more of a public presence, that may shift.
Analysts may feel they have to vet their work more carefully. They
may feel that only certain topics should be written about; realizing
that their reports will be released into the public domain.
Another potential or unintended consequence could be the erosion of the speech or debate protection that CRS has for the confidential work it does for Congress. As we take on more of a public
persona, so to speak, the Service may be viewed differently by the
courts. Previous decisions that have upheld the speech or debate
protection for CRS, have been predicated on the fact that we work
exclusively for the Congress.
The other thing is there are going to be tangible costs to publish
our reports. We have to put them in a format for public release.
We would also have to manage the expectations from the public for
us to be responsive to them.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you.
IMPACT ON CRS

Mr. NEWLEN. I think Dr. Mazanec covered the concerns that

Congress needs to think about. You hit the nail on the head in
terms of options. That is making the least impact on CRS analysts
and any kind of outside pressure that they might experience. You
suggested that the House would work with CRS.
I think these are all options worth exploring, we should outline
those options that are most cost efficient, have the least impact on
CRS, and provide you with the kind of information and analysis
that you need.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Seems to me that that, Mr. Chairman,
is a way that we could provide transparency. I am from the Sunshine State. That is not being funnywe have the most stringent
sunshine law in the country. So I am from that culture.
But I also know that there are things that we all do as legislators that are the dumbest ideas on the face of the Earth, and when
you consult an expert at CRS, they help shut you down right away.
You may not want to expose that dumb idea or it is not the direction that you ultimately choose to go.

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So there are unintended consequences. There are fully baked reports that we could share. I just think to protect the speech and
debate requirements that we have here, that that is something that
should be initiated and controlled by the House of Representatives
and the Senate rather than it forced on the people who are providing a service to us to be able to do our jobs effectively.
So thank you. I yield back.
CONGRESSIONAL DIALOG

Mr. GRAVES. Thank you. Yes, well said.

In addition to, I think it is not the intent of this committee to
put any additional duties or responsibilities or CRS whatsoever.
You are doing a great job with limited resources, and we are grateful for that. And I have read your testimonies. Remarkable work.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Lets get them more money, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. GRAVES. We are very limited here.
Mr. Farr.
USE OF CRS

Mr. FARR. Thank you very much.

I have to confess something here: I am an addict. I have been
told that our office is one of the 10 top users of CRS. So I am really
addicted to it. I think that the worst thing in the world would be
to allow CRS opened up. It will become the biggest recipient of
homework assignments in the United States.
We dont allow our lawyers to draft bills for the outside world.
That is done inside. I think that the reference research service is
ours and we ought to use it as such. I say that because I just
learned from CRS that as a retired Member, you still get to get access to it.
David Mao, I just want to tell you, I have so enjoyed your leadership and your spirit. I wish you werent the acting Librarian. I
wish you were the permanent one.
USE OF PRIVATE DONATIONS

But I just thought of something. We were discussing whether private donations can be used for restoring the Capitol and the
Grounds, and it seems to me the Library of Congress, dont you
have the ability to receive private gifts from foundations and individuals and things like that?
Mr. MAO. Are you talking about money or books?
Mr. FARR. Money.
Mr. MAO. Yes, we can certainly receive donations, and we do receive donations.
Mr. FARR. Have there been any problems with people sort of saying, well, you know, if you get a private donation, like from the
Ford Foundation or something, is there a concern that it is going
to be used for commercial purposes?
Mr. MAO. No, not at all. And we have lots of donations and gift
agreements with people, individuals, companies, and corporations,
that may have a particular interest in a particular collection area
to help supplement or they may encourage us to have programs in
certain areas. And it allows us to do these extra things that our

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sparse appropriated dollars dont necessarily allow us to do. And so
we do accept donations.
Mr. FARR. I think this is going to generate another research
question for CRS, the question being why cant we use private donations for restoration projects here in the Capitol, because that
was brought up yesterday when we were talking about it.
PRIMARY COMPUTING FACILITY

We talked a little bit yesterday, I dont know if you were here,

but we talked about this co-location of the data center in southwest
Virginia. the chair and ranking knew more about it than I did, that
that seems to be on target. But I dont think any money has been
appropriated for it.
The question here is, if the Library does not get the funds requested in the fiscal year 2017 budget, what would be the impact
on the Librarys services? What would be the fiscal impact on the
Library if it is required to build its own new data center? I dont
even know if that is an option. I dont know if the House has
agreed to accommodate the Library in co-location.
Mr. MAO. Well, thank you. The Library is interested, as you
know from our budget request, in participating with the House in
the legislative branch data center. We have had great support from
the House in working with the House, and, in fact, we have based
a lot of our decisions on the great studies that the House has done
and working in tandem with them in providing us with the great
studies that they have already done so that we dont have to recreate the wheel.
The key question is the money. So we dont have the funding to
actually move our data center.
Mr. FARR. Is that in your budget?
Mr. MAO. What?
Mr. FARR. The funding. Is the money there towell, if you colocate, that means that the design of this center is going to have
to be bigger, right?
Mr. MAO. No. There would be room at the House data center for
a Library of Congress tolegislative branch data centerfor the
Library to participate along with the House. What we are asking
for is to actually move, and that is what the funding is for. There
is approximately $55 million total.
Mr. FARR. I dont mean to ask this question if it is all on track,
but I got the feeling somehow, either discussing with you or others,
that there was some glitch in this process.
Mr. MAO. No, we are very happy with moving forward. It is just
the money to be able to afford to do it.
Mr. FARR. But that is in your budget?
Mr. MAO. That is in the budget request, yes.
Mr. FARR. So the question is for Congress to approve it or you
cant do the co-location.
Mr. MAO. That is correct. We would submit it again next year because we do believe that it is the best practice moving forward and
that we would need to do that, if not now then at some point.
Mr. FARR. Have we ever denied that before or cut back that request?
Mr. MAO. We havent asked for it before.

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Mr. FARR. All right.
VETERANS HISTORY PROJECT

The other question I have is on the Veterans History Project,

which, by the way, was created 10 or 12 years ago.
Mr. MAO. Fifteen.
Mr. FARR. Fifteen years ago. Congress created the authorization
that we could go out and collect oral history projects from veterans
of any war. Usually its all the heroes who get the medals. But part
of our national cultural collection is what grandpa did during the
war, a sort of Story Corps-type things.
I have used it in my district and it is justI mean, everybody
who sees these things ends up in tears. People, families, spouses
even say: My husband never told me about his war experience. But
he will tell his grandson or granddaughter, who usually gets an assignment as a school project, to go out and interview grandpa, and
the vets decide at that age, well, maybeI have never told these
stories, never wanted to, but I will do it. Then we can archive these
stories in the Library of Congress. I think it has really taken off
and it gives our veterans a chance to feel like they are really appreciated.
I see that you ask for a 4 percent increase. I want to know, is
that enough? Because I think every 435 Members of Congress are
now starting to use this process as a constituent tool, especially
now that we have troops back from Iraq and Afghanistan. Are
there any special plans to reach out to this particular group of veterans to record their stories?
Mr. MAO. Yes. And so to answer your first question, we certainly
would take more money and would appreciate having that. But seriously, it is a great project and it is a great program that Congress
Mr. FARR. But 4 percent will allow
Mr. MAO. Allow us to keep pace. And, in fact, we just passed our
100,000 mark. We celebrated receiving our 100,000th oral history
to add to the archive, and it is now the largest oral archive history
in the United States. And it is a great way for us to continue to
honor the men and women that have served.
Mr. FARR. I, frankly, think that every library in the United
States ought to have oral history of that community. That ought to
be just part of the American culture. We need to always tell our
stories.
Mr. MAO. Yes.
Mr. FARR. That is how all information was passed along in the
early days. So we ought to go back to capturing that.
SPOKEN LANGUAGES

Mary, how many languages are there, do you speak in your Service?
Dr. MAZANEC. That is an interesting question. I dont have the
answer to that.
Mr. FARR. Are all your area specialists also linguists?
Dr. MAZANEC. No, not necessarily.
Mr. FARR. So not all of them can read the local

160
Dr. MAZANEC. No. But I can find out how many different languages are represented in the CRS staff and get back to you.
Mr. FARR. I have traveled mostly in Latin America and everybody is fluent in Spanish. But we were talking the other day about
how thin CRS is. It has area specialists, just like the military has
foreign area officers. FAOs really live in the culture, they live in
those countries and in those regions. For CRS area specialists to
really catch up and sort of have a refresher, CRS ought to be give
sabbaticals for your area specialists. But you told me that there is
nobody to fill in while theyre gone.
Dr. MAZANEC. Well, our travel and training budget has also been
one of the line items that we have reduced in order to maintain the
expertise across all the issue areas. And I know that in my Foreign
Affairs, Defense and Trade Division, the analysts that do the regions or the countries do feel they need in-country experience in
order to be credible.
Mr. FARR. Well, we just ought to think about that when we are
looking at that budget.
FOREIGN EXPERTISEINTRA-LIBRARY PARTNERSHIPS

Mr. MAO. If I may, Mr. Farr, sorry to interrupt, but that is one
of the great reasons why the Library is such a fabulous institution
where we can all help each other out. Certainly in the Law Library
there is a large staff of foreign-trained attorneys, and they are all
foreign-born and speak the language.
And to the extent that CRS analysts need assistance with a specific language or linguistic skills, we try to help out across the entire Library, and that is not necessarily even the Law Library. We
have catalogers, people in our reading rooms, in our area study
reading rooms, that speak the language.
Mr. FARR. What I am really keen on, and this is for everybody
in this room, are lessons I learned while negotiating with Plan Colombia. There we ended up trying to revitalize or upgrading all the
institutions in the Columbian Government. The United States was
angry with the military in Colombia because they were violating all
kinds of human rights and stuff.
We finally got around to realizing that the military is an institution of government. You cant just ignore the military and fund everything else. You have to train and upgrade and clean up parts
of the Colombian Government. Now Columbia is one of our key allies in the world, including their military. Very professionalized.
HOUSE DEMOCRACY PARTNERSHIP COMMITTEE

What we always forget to do is to help professionalize the legislative branch of government. The House Democracy Partnership
Committee is reaching out to do this. Members of Congress talk
parliamentarian to parliamentarian to emerging democratic nations.
I think what we need to do is leave behind or allow staff members from the Library of Congress and CRS to travel to these
emerging democracies and work with their staffs. Many of these
countries tell us: We want some independent information. We want
a budget office. We want a Library of Congress.

161
But that is not in our budget. I know we have had difficulties
asking the Library to sponsor Open World. The ranking member
and I have had two different opinions on that. But I understand
the Senate reauthorized it and appropriated money last year.
But I understand that Open World directed to create a strategic
plan on how it could collaborate with other congressional engagement activities, like the House Democracy Partnership Committee.
That plan is due at the end of this month, right? Is it ready? Or
who does that?
Mr. MAO. Not sure.
Dr. MAZANEC. To engage with HDP?
Mr. FARR. Yes, that plan is supposed to be due to Congress on
March 31.
Do we know?
Mr. GRAVES. I dont know. We will have to get back with you on
that one. The question continues, yes.
EMPLOYEE MORALE

Mr. FARR. Last one. Just a question on how you do your professional sort of upgrading. I mean, there have been rumors around
that among staff at around CRS is, in some reports, declining morale. I dont know whether it is true or just, you know, there are
always people who are complaining.
I wondered whether you might have thought about bringing in
an independent outside management consultant to perform an assessment and recommendations on possible improvements to morale and welfare of the Library and CRS.
EMPLOYEE FEEDBACK

Mr. MAO. Well, I mean, I will certainly defer to Dr. Mazanec to

talk specifically about CRS. But what I would say is, I think the
morale question at the Library, my experience in walking around
and speaking to employees and meeting with employees over the
lastI guess since October, when I assumed this positionis that
they are a very dedicated staff and all very concerned and really
into the work of the Library of Congress and want it to continue
to be the great place that it is.
And we have walked around, both Robert and I, and we have
met with small groups to hear what people think about different
areas, because certainly it has been a long time since there has
been a transition. And during the time of transition we want to
make sure that we engage the Library and have them involved in
setting the course for the Library moving forward. And from my experience, we have gotten a lot of great, great feedback from employees about different things at the Library. And so certainly we will
take those into consideration.
Mr. FARR. Well, I guess it depends on the extent ofif there is
nothing broken, dont fix it. But there have been complaints.
CRS STAFF

Dr. MAZANEC. Let me just make a few points.

First of all, I would echo what David said about the dedication
of the CRS staff. It is one of theactually the best staff, the best

162
group of colleagues that I have been associated with in my professional career.
I think, though, we are asking them to do more with less, and
they are stretched, and they are feeling that. And that sends a
message to them about the value that is placed in CRS.
I just finished a 5-year strategic plan for CRS. I held over 40
hours of all-hands and brown bags and there was a tremendous engagement. They are interested in the institution. They are very
dedicated to the mission. They love working for Congress.
Mr. FARR. We just dont pay them enough, or we give them too
much work.
Dr. MAZANEC. They are here to support you. They are here to
support you.
Mr. FARR. Well, maybe, I dont know
Mr. GRAVES. Mr. Farr, we actually have one more panel, if you
are open to inviting Ms. Pallante up, and we will ease into the next
panel.
Doctor, thank you very much for all you are doing, for answering
the questions.
Mr. NEWLEN. Mr. Chairman, could I just make one remark.
Mr. GRAVES. You could. Could I invite Ms. Pallante up to join the
panel.
DEDICATED STAFF

Mr. NEWLEN. I just wanted to thank Ms. Wasserman Schultz for

bringing up the Rosa Parks Collection today, because this is just
a recent example of what our talented and dedicated staff do so
well: acquire, preserve, and make accessible rare and unique material. And this is a wonderful, wonderful example of that.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. And have the opportunity for people
to see it.
Mr. NEWLEN. Exactly. So thank you for bringing it up.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. You are welcome.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 2016.

U.S. COPYRIGHT PROGRAM PROJECT AND ACTIVITY
REVIEW
WITNESSES
DAVID S. MAO, ACTING LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS
MARIA A. PALLANTE, REGISTER AND DIRECTOR
COPYRIGHT MODERNIZATION

Mr. GRAVES. Well, thank you. That is nice.

Thank you for joining us. We will sort of step into a second panel
here, to discuss the digital age and Copyrights just a little bit.
I know in fiscal year 2015 the Senate requested, and GAO, to examine the Copyrights information technology infrastructure and to
identify any deficiencies or obstacles to serving the copyright community in a modernized environment. Now, this report was released almost 1 year ago.
Last year, this subcommittee included report language requesting a detailed plan on necessary IT upgrades that are required for
a 21st century copyright organization.
Now, we received this report this past Friday, the 26th. We want
to thank you for your work on the report. And I know there have
been some hearings held by some other committees. But this committee as well wants to hear your thoughts. And understand that
you have a very different mission than the Library, the broader Library in itself.
So the purpose of this hearing is not to talk about making the
Copyright Office an independent agencyI know that has been a
topic in past, but not todaybut to focus on the future of the Copyright Office within the Library of Congress and what is needed to
ensure that we are able to meet the demands of the digital age.
So I know there is not a statement or such that we would ask
you to present, but I know that we will have some questions. And
I might start off, if that is OK, and then Ms. Wasserman Schultz,
because I think mine is rather simple because it just comes from
questions you have probably already received from those who are
really trying to utilize the Copyright Office in the right way and
have access to it. you have discussed in your report that the IT in
the Copyright Office is behind the times, and that may be a little
bit of your quote there.
COPYRIGHT OFFICE IN THE DIGITAL AGE

So when, at this point when our Nation has been online for about
20 years now, will we be in the right spot when it comes to the
Copyright Office? And why is it taking so long, in your opinion?
Ms. PALLANTE. Well, thank you, Chairman Graves. And before I
answer your question, thank you for the support of the committee
(163)

164
the last couple of years, with respect especially to our registration
program. We were able to add to our depleted staff and that has
really made a difference.
So this report is part reacting to what experts in the office know
to be deficiencies currently, but it is very much looking to where
the copyright system is going as well. So I wanted to make that
point because I think good government is future focused.
And we know that, for example, people will be registering on
phones. They want to look on their tablets to find out who owns
what. They want to create software APIs to collect our data and
create, say, a new delivery service. And so we are focused on that,
where is the system, where is the marketplace.
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

What I would say in direct response to your question is that

when the Copyright Officeand this is all before our timefirst
went online, the way that it was constructed was that the Copyright Office would control at the application level the software
interface that customers see, but the underlying IT would be controlled by the Library agencywide.
Over time, I think that has broken down, in part just because
what we do is incredibly complex. It is a 24/7 focus. It is inefficient
to try to explain our needs to a different department. And that department doesnt have the benefit of working side by side with the
experts in the Copyright Office.
So everybody elseand some of my division heads are here
todayare by my side. The recordation staff, the registration staff,
the statutory license experts, the policy team, the lawyers, the operations people. But the IT is not with us. And that is, I think,
where we are. I also think that we have been underresourced.
Mr. GRAVES. So it will take time, still a little more time.
Ms. PALLANTE. Which I thought you probably knew I would say.
I mean, we have a plan. That was the long history. But the good
news is we can not only fix the deficiencies, but I think get ahead
of them. That is the goal.
Mr. GRAVES. That is good news. Good news.
Well, one other question, then Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
SEARCHABLE COPYRIGHT REGISTRATION SYSTEM

What I hear probably the most about when it comes to the Copyrights is why is there not an updated searchable registration system that is available to all the users who are really trying to use
a system correctly and not violate anyones copyrights?
Ms. PALLANTE. Yes, no, I agree. That has been my talking point
from the moment I became Register 5 years ago.
So you are talking about the back end of the system as opposed
to the filing side of the system. So the system, I think, probably
was designed primarily to allow people that used to register with
paper to do the same thing online. And it is searchable. I mean,
I dont know if you are hearing that it is not searchable. It is not
whiz, bang, Internet savvy searchable. I think that is what people
are saying, and we agree, and it should be.
And why is that important? Because you want to generate participation in the system and you want people to be found once they

165
have registered with the government. And they dont have to. It is
a voluntary system.
And we are trying to create a platform where people can find out
that so-and-so owns the rights or part of the rights. You have many
rights holders owning various parts of work, music, the audio-visual, the underlying text, and you want to be able not just to find
them and then call them, you want to be able to connect to the
metadata and know exactly who owns what. But you also want to
know if there are no rights owners, it is in public domain, you can
use it.
Mr. GRAVES. Maybe I left out a phrase, maybe updated and
searchable.
Ms. PALLANTE. Yes.
SEARCHABLE HISTORIC COPYRIGHT RECORDS

Mr. GRAVES. I understand that something can be searchable, but

if something is current today, is it available and searchable on the
other end today? That that might be the question.
Ms. PALLANTE. It is searchable within a reasonable timeframe.
Mr. GRAVES. A day or 2 or a month.
Ms. PALLANTE. But not all records going back to the Civil War
are searchable. So it is basically after 1978. And most of those
things are what people are using, but there is a historical piece
that has not yet been digitized, because the system startedit was
a different system starting at that point in time.
So the modernization effort would be comprehensive. You have to
fix the filing side. You have to generate interest and participation
and encourage people to put their data into the government system. And then you want to make it clearly searchable, user friendly, so that people can come and use that data and use it for a different kind of business on the back end.
Mr. GRAVES. Is that true with music or everything?
Ms. PALLANTE. Yes, music is a great example. Music is the best
example, because if you are a music creator, you want to be able
to tap into an app or a program that you are creating the music
in and register seamlessly, not log off, log onto our funky system,
put your data in, hope that it catches up.
Then on the back end, if you are an innovative music delivery
service, you should be able to come and get all of the benefit of the
government data on equal footing and build your business from
that.
And so we are supporting industries on both sides of the copyright equation. That is a good use of government. That is what we
have been saying.
Mr. GRAVES. Thank you for your explanation.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you.
I also want to acknowledge that we are not talking about the future status of the office here, but the confines of the Library.
COPYRIGHT BUDGET REQUEST

Your budget request was built many months ago and we did just
receive your plan on Friday.
Ms. PALLANTE. Yes.

166
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. We received it early, which was nice
and refreshing. But I am concerned that you built a budget request
that doesnt probably line up with your report.
Ms. PALLANTE. Yes, that is correct.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. How are we going to reconcile that we
have to build a budget but not ignore the report until we build the
next budget. I will just ask my questions all at once and expedite
this.
COPYRIGHT STAKEHOLDERS

The other fiscal year 2016 requirement was that your office was
to go out and ask stakeholders for their opinion of how we fund the
Copyright Office and take their temperature in terms of their willingness to pay to improve IT infrastructure. I am guessing that
there is probably willingness out there.
I dont want to prejudge what we are likely to hear from the public when you go through the comment period, but I would like you
to prejudge what we are likely hear from, large versus small copyright owners. Also, if you could just give a brief explanation of
what we are allowed to pay for through fees versus appropriations
at the moment.
Ms. PALLANTE. Sure. So we have gone out with the Federal Register process. It is in motion. You will have comments from us, I
would say, the first week in April. It closes on the 31st of March,
I think.
If I were to prejudge it, I think what you are going to hear is
that it should be a mix of appropriations and fees, as it always has
been, especially because you are potentially asking, if you focus
mostly on fees, one group of contributors to the economy to fund
the other part of the economy or subsidize them. It will feel that
way to people because we dont charge them
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. To large copyright holders.
Ms. PALLANTE. I wasnt even getting into the small versus large.
I just mean the copyright owners who are filing and paying to put
the data in versus those who would benefit from using it and building different businesses on the back end based on the fact that they
have access to the licenses or the data or the royalties, whatever
it might be. And that is free, and I think it has always been free.
And again, we want to government to provide a platform for that
kind of exchange.
So, I guess, I am just saying that I think it is probably not the
case that you are going to hear that the people paying into the system feel like they should pay for all of the modernization, especially because, as the chairman said, some of the complaints are on
the back end. They want to be able to search on the back end.
So because it is a voluntary system, it is an art. You will also
see that big copyright owners are probably willing to subsidize
small copyright owners. We already took their temperature on that
a little bit this last fee schedule. But they also expect better service, and they expect their fees to be put directly back into the copyright system. And that is, I think, part and parcel to this plan.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. A little more whiz, bang.
Ms. PALLANTE. Yes. I think, because, again, because we
havent

167
COPYRIGHT FEES

Mr. FARR. Where do those fees go now?

Ms. PALLANTE. The ability of the Copyright Office to spend fees
for IT is very limited because the IT is not ours. It is agencywide
IT. And so if you are asking them to pay more, I thinkand this
is what we are hearingthe fees have to be put back directly into
the copyright system infrastructure, planning, IT, operability,
focus.
Mr. FARR. So they are just going in the general fund, are they
in the Treasury?
Ms. PALLANTE. Well, eventually they go to the Treasury. They
come through Pay.gov. I think the issue is the more you charge, the
more that they want to see the results.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. They are not plowed back into the
service right now?
COPYRIGHT IT SYSTEMS

Ms. PALLANTE. I dont think you could say that they arebecause we are not picking IT systems based on the copyright system,
we are picking agencywide systems. There is that concern then of
course the system is not working right now for copyright owners
or for copyright users.
That doesnt mean there arent synergies. That doesnt mean that
the Copyright Office and the Library shouldnt have shared services, that we shouldnt have points where we touch. It just means
that we have to recognize that there may not be a one-size-fits-all.
And this has been a very long time coming, and I think most people agree with that. It is just figuring out what the points of alignment are and allowing the office to take over the IT that it is an
expert in or allow them to work next to the experts.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. you are building, it looks like, an
independent IT system, but you are still housed within the Library?
Ms. PALLANTE. Oh, yes. I mean, it doesnt have anything to do
with the constitutional, legal arguments about whether there are
conflicts and what the structure should be and the interagency
process with other IP organizations and the government.
It only is saying that we built it, we built an online registration
system. Recordation is still paper. We have all of these other things
we need to connect. It is unlikely we can do that in the current paradigm where we are going to a central IT office and saying, as one
of your many clients, here are our needs, because this plan is a 24/
7, 5-year plan and it is going to take that. And it takes being in
the Copyright Office.
So we have a tiny, little team right now, and we have no responsibility for administering IT as to the underlying systems, the servers, et cetera. And it is stressful. We had an outage. It was extremely stressful for the Copyright Office. Because in partI
mean, things happenbut in part it is because we are on the outside of those failures or plans.
I dont know if I answered your question.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. You did. Thank you.
Mr. GRAVES. Mr. Farr, any questions?
Did you have anything you wanted to add, Mr. Mao?

168
Anything additional?
AGENCY SUPPORT

Mr. MAO. No. We look forward to this plan as well and we are
looking to working together, because that is what we need to do.
The Copyright Office, their clients are clients of the Library of Congress and the Library wants to make sure that all of the clients
are being served. And that is why our budget proposal is what it
is, to make sure that our infrastructure can support all of our clients.
CHAIRMANS CLOSING REMARKS

Mr. GRAVES. Great. Well, if there are no other questions, let me

thank you all for joining us today, for working together for the betterment of what we are all trying to do here for our constituency
across the country. And we will stand in recess until we are called
back.
[Questions submitted for the record and additional statements
for the record follow:]

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WITNESSES
Page

Ayers, S. T ................................................................................................................
Braddock, R. L .........................................................................................................
Burd, James .............................................................................................................
Dine, K. C .................................................................................................................
Dodaro, G. L .............................................................................................................
Haas, K. L ................................................................................................................
Hall, Keith ................................................................................................................
Irving, P. D ...............................................................................................................
Mao, D. S .............................................................................................................. 125,
Newlen, R. R ............................................................................................................
OKeefe, J. M ............................................................................................................
Pallante, M. A ..........................................................................................................
Plaster, Will .............................................................................................................
Sapin, B. J ................................................................................................................
Schniderman, Saul ..................................................................................................
Schuman, Daniel ......................................................................................................
Stiverson, K. A .........................................................................................................
Vance-Cooks, Davita ................................................................................................
Verderosa, M. R .......................................................................................................

(i)

37
1
240
1
198
63
221
63
163
125
229
163
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225
244
256
251
187
1

INDEX
United States Capitol Police
Page

Concealed Weapons in the Capitol Complex .........................................................

Coordination with Law Enforcement Agencies in DC ..........................................
Future Threats and Challenges ..............................................................................
House Garages and Enhanced Security .................................................................
Long-term Impact of the Spending Plan for Enhanced Security .........................
Longworth Magnetometers .....................................................................................
Opening Statement of Chairman Tom Graves ......................................................
Opening Statement of Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz .............................
Opening Statement of the Honorable Nita M. Lowey ..........................................
Questions for the Record, Chairman Graves .........................................................
Role of the Capitol Police Board in the USCP Budget Process ...........................
State of USCP Readiness ........................................................................................
Statement of Chief Kim C. Dine .............................................................................
Testimony of Chief Kim C. Dine ............................................................................
USCP Radio System ................................................................................................

29
26
21
30
22
27
1
2
3
33
23
23
4
8
25

Architect of the Capitol (AOC)

Acting Chairman Remarks .....................................................................................
Advice and Lessons Learned ...................................................................................
Cannon Renewal ......................................................................................................
Capitol Power Plant ................................................................................................
Data Center Relocation ...........................................................................................
Energy Savings ........................................................................................................
House Page Dorm ....................................................................................................
Questions for the Record .........................................................................................
Cannon House Office Building ........................................................................
Capitol Dome Restoration ................................................................................
Rayburn Building Garage Rehabilitation .......................................................
FTEs ..................................................................................................................
Zero Based Budgeting ......................................................................................
Capitol Police Buildings and Grounds ............................................................
Grant Memorial ................................................................................................
Stone Preservation ...........................................................................................
Ranking Member Remarks .....................................................................................
Rayburn Small Arms Firing Range ........................................................................
Summary Statement of Architect of the Capitol ...................................................
Stewardship Through Prioritization ...............................................................
Fiscal Year 2017 Request ................................................................................
U.S. Capitol Dome ...................................................................................................
Working Capital Fund .............................................................................................
Written Statement of Stephen T. Ayers ................................................................

37
50
51
53
49
49
45
54
54
57
57
58
58
59
60
61
37
46
38
38
39
47
48
40

U.S. House of Representatives

Access to the Capitol Campus ................................................................................
Adequate Resources for Cyber Security .................................................................
Amount of Dollars Reprogrammed for Lawsuits. ..................................................
CAO Response for Lawsuit Reprogramming Question .........................................
CAO Response for Sodexo Question .......................................................................
(iii)

101
99
104
109
109

iv
Page

Capitol Police Board ................................................................................................

Capitol Police Board (continued) ............................................................................
Capitol Police Board Oversight ..............................................................................
Committee and Capitol Police Board Meeting ......................................................
Determining the Members Representational Allowances Bottom-line ...............
Electronic Voting Machines ....................................................................................
Feminine Hygiene Availability (continued) ...........................................................
Feminine Hygiene Products Availability ...............................................................
Garage Security Initiative ......................................................................................
Garage Security Initiative (continued) ...................................................................
House Cyber Security ..............................................................................................
Increasing Members Representational Allowance Budget ..................................
Magnetometers throughout the House Campus. ...................................................
Need for the Garage Security Initiative ................................................................
Opening Statement of Hon. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Ranking Member ......
Opening Statement of Hon. Tom Graves, Chairman ............................................
Order of the Longworth Security Initiative ...........................................................
Questions for the Record .........................................................................................
Recruiting and Retaining Quality Staff .................................................................
Reforming the Capitol Police Board .......................................................................
Screening Members .................................................................................................
Sodexo-House Food Service Vendor .......................................................................
Statement of Hon. E. Scott Rigell ..........................................................................
Statement of Hon. Karen Haas, Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives ..............
Statement of Hon. Paul Irving, Sergeant at Arms, U.S. House of Representatives .......................................................................................................................
Statement of Hon. Sam Farr ..................................................................................
Statement of Hon. Steven M. Palazzo ....................................................................
Statement of Hon. Will Plaster, Chief Administrative Officer, U.S. House
of Representatives ................................................................................................
Structure of the Capitol Police Board ....................................................................
Termination Timeline for Sodexo Food Services Contract ...................................
The House Sergeant at Arms vs The Senate Sergeant at Arms .........................
Three General Areas of Cyber Security .................................................................

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Library of Congress
Agency Support ........................................................................................................
Chairmans Closing Remarks .................................................................................
Congressional Dialog ........................................................................................... 153,
Congressional Research Service .............................................................................
CRS Personnel ..................................................................................................
CRS Staff ...........................................................................................................
Impact on CRS ..................................................................................................
Public Access to CRS Reports ..........................................................................
Use of CRS ........................................................................................................
Copyright Office:
Copyright Budget Request ...............................................................................
Copyright Fees ..................................................................................................
Copyright Information Technology ..................................................................
Copyright IT Systems .......................................................................................
Copyright Modernization .................................................................................
Copyright Office in the Digital Age ................................................................
Copyright Stakeholders ....................................................................................
Searchable Copyright Registration System ....................................................
Searchable Historic Copyright Records ..........................................................
Dedicated Staff .........................................................................................................
Employee Feedback .................................................................................................
Employee Morale .....................................................................................................
Foreign ExpertiseIntra-Library Partnerships ...................................................
House Democracy Partnership Committee ............................................................
Mass Deacidification Program ................................................................................
Opening Statements:
Acting Librarian of Congress ...........................................................................
Chairman Graves .............................................................................................
Ms. Wasserman Schultz ...................................................................................
PreservationMass Deacidification .......................................................................

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Primary Computing Facility ...................................................................................

Questions for the Record from the Chairman:
Copyright Office ................................................................................................
Information Technology ...................................................................................
Mass Deacidification ........................................................................................
National Library Service ..................................................................................
Primary Computing Facility ............................................................................
Questions for the Record from Mr. Farr:
Mass Deacidification Program .........................................................................
Supporting Congress with Foreign Affairs .....................................................
Spoken Languages ...................................................................................................
Use of Private Donations ........................................................................................
Veterans History Project .........................................................................................
Written Statements:
Acting Librarian of Congress ...........................................................................
Director, Congressional Research Service ......................................................
Register and Director of Copyrights ...............................................................

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